


World at Large

by Sharkseye



Series: That's What We're Waiting For Aren't We? [1]
Category: Supernatural, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dom/sub, Face-Fucking, Future Fic, Implied Torture, Knotting, Lack of Communication, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Possessive Behavior, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con - Freeform, Rough Sex, post purgatory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-14 23:56:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 40,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharkseye/pseuds/Sharkseye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Dean gets out of purgatory and is abandoned by his brother and Derek's pack leave him, they have a chance meeting and one night stand in a random bar.  After separating and finding out that they're both tangled up in the supernatural and completely alone, they start working together.  This story follows their journey and mishaps through working with each other as werewolf and hunter, as well as how they try and get Castiel back from purgatory.</p>
<p>*Notes* (Read!)<br/>For Supernatural this story is set after Dean returns from purgatory and Sam has decided to leave hunting and stay with Amelia right away-canon divergence, none of season 8 happens. For Teen Wolf this is sometime in the future after the pack settled down and then left and spread out to university's and such.  You can read it if you haven't watched both shows, I've tried to put a bit of back story into the first chapter and later chapters. This is a completed work and will be updated every day-I just haven't split it into chapters yet.  Lastly, for those who are unhappy about the rape tag, it's in very far later chapters and you can skip the chapter in which the rape occurs, although the aftereffects are dealt with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. If the world's at large, why should I remain?

**Author's Note:**

> Any OOCness is explained and thought through in later chapters, so anything you don't get will likely be mentioned again. If it isn't, just leave a comment. Even if there isn't something you don't get, leave a comment anyways :)  
> POV changes are separated by a ~*~ line, while time changes are separated by an extra space.
> 
> Thanks for taking the time to look at this and hope you enjoy!

Dean really didn’t know why he hadn’t expected it.  Okay, that was a lie.  He had expected quite a few things, but this was one thing he just didn’t get.  Perhaps contrary to popular belief, Dean had done quite a bit of thinking during his year in purgatory—mostly about how not to die, how to survive, how to find his angel, but he was a hunter so give him a break, those thoughts were normal.  What he was referring to thinking about now however, was getting out of purgatory and reuniting with Sam.  The word reuniting was used in its loosest terms here, as the dictionary definition didn’t end in one party telling the other that they were honestly happy to see them, but they just really didn’t want to go back to hunting.  But Dean could totally visit, ‘cause that’d be great. 

So in less cryptic terms, Dean had gotten out of purgatory, went to see his brother Sam and was promptly told that Sam was no longer into the whole family business of saving people, hunting things.  Because—and this was the best part—Sam had spent the past year frolicking around with his lovely lady friend who was his perfect unicorn and even had a pet dog.  Meanwhile Dean had been up to his elbows in monster guts, running around and using certain knowledge gained in hell in order to force monsters to help him find his angelic best friend Castiel.  Who at the last minute had been left behind in purgatory.  Oh yes, life was just fucking peachy. 

The impala’s radio switched to Ride the Lightning by Metallica and Dean breathed slightly easier.  Music like this always made life better.  Plus there was a sign for a bar up ahead from where Dean was driving, many towns and even more hours from where Sam had decided to leave him.  Getting drunk right now was going to be seriously awesome.  Pulling into the parking lot Dean shut off baby rather harshly and paused, resting his head against the steering wheel for a second to collect his thoughts and calm down so he didn’t hurt his car—Sam had been nice enough to give her back, which was one bonus.  First things first, he needed to check into a motel.  Secondly, he needed to get completely shitfaced.  Tomorrow he would start looking for ways to get Cas back, because Sam sure as hell didn’t need Dean and the hunter wasn’t intending on settling down.  There, everything planned out.

On autopilot Dean grabbed his bags and got a room, only just remembering to get one bed.  He threw down his bag and salted all the entrances against demons, making sure to hide it in case he picked someone up, which, with the way he was feeling, seemed quite likely.  With that done, Dean grabbed a flask of holy water, shoved it and his wallet into his pocket and left for the bar. 

 

~*~

 

Derek sighed, pushing the bar door open and scowling at the crowd.  He had only just arrived in this place and was now wondering if he shouldn’t have moved on.  Everyone else had moved on, his whole pack leaving for colleges, universities and extended vacations.  Because Beacon Hill’s had felt so empty without his pack Derek had also left.  He set up his house—only slightly refinished over the years with the pack—so he could leave it for an extended amount of time and then proceeded to move from place to place without staying anywhere more than a day.  Or staying sober without non fatal wolfsbane laced alcohol helping him to get through with the lack of pack he had gotten so used to.  It was far easier to deal with things through an alcohol induced haze than actually thinking them over and dealing.

He finally spotted an empty stool at the bar which had a dark haired man nursing shots from a bottle on one side and a couple deep in actual conversation on the other, relatively quiet.  He slid onto the seat and was quite surprised at the little amount of time it took for the bartender to come over.  Taking cue from the man at his side, Derek also ordered an entire bottle of terrible whisky; inconspicuously shaking a small pinch of wolfsbane into it and then draining a third in one go.  It took a ton of alcohol to get a werewolf drunk and he really needed not to be sober, the wolfsbane just helped the process.   

After the first couple hours Derek’s plan of staying away from anyone was rudely interrupted.  The couple beside him had left only minutes ago which made room for a group of squealing girls who were drunk enough to be throwing themselves at Derek, not taking a hint that they were completely unwanted.  

Desperate for some way to discourage them, Derek turned to the man on his other side, who was still sitting and enjoying his shots. Nodding to the alcohol, Derek asked “Rough day?”

The man laughed, shaking his head and twirling an empty glass.  “Rough year.  I can’t even remember when it wasn’t.  You too?  You’re brooding as much as I am”

“Ya, rough year.” Derek replied, pointedly turning further towards the man when one of the girls moved closer and trying to ignore how much the mention of brooding reminded him of Stiles.  “Anything particular today?”

The man chuckled at the girls still trying to flirt with Derek, but then paused at his question, tilting his head to the side in a movement that _probably_ wasn’t so exaggerated when he was sober.  This was definitely a weird time as Derek was actively trying to avoid being flirted with, but he was struck by how good looking the guy was.  Green eyes, a chiseled but almost feminine face, full lips, the dude was gorgeous. 

“It’s a really long story that just cumulated today” The man finally said with an amused lit to his voice, and Derek yanked his gaze back to the guys eyes, aware he had been caught staring.  Luckily the guy didn’t seem to mind, a grin tugging at his mouth. 

And for some reason Derek didn’t want to stop talking, but even still he must’ve been drunker than he thought at the next words that came out of his mouth.  “Hey, mine’s years old.  We could trade and then brood together?”

The guy laughed, this time seeming more real than the previous almost desperate amusement.  “You got yourself a deal but I’m not sure you want to hear about all my huge fucking abandonment issues”

“You too? It might be good.  I’d love to know that I’m not the only person that everyone leaves” Derek scowled after saying that, definitely maudlin drunk today.  Maybe he had put a little bit too much wolfsbane in his drink, he wondered, frowning at the alcohol.  “And you’re starting, ‘cause this is making me way too free with my words.  My name’s Derek by the way”

The man shook his head, the movement natural and not a denial.  He rested forward on the table and took a moment to just survey Derek.  The werewolf could smell suspicion and desire warring in him, but then loneliness won out and he introduced himself. 

Condensing the whole thing, the man’s name was Dean and he explained that there was a whole shit ton of back story, but the basic foundation was that he traveled a lot, living his entire life on the road with his brother and his best and only friend.  His mother had died in a fire when he was a kid and his father had dragged him and his brother onto the road, obsessively searching for the person who had killed her.  His brother had left them for a while, and eventually Dean had pulled him into their nomadic life back when his father went missing.  Long story short, his dad died, his brother had almost died and Dean had gotten into the debt of some really bad people in order to save him.  After four months in hell—practically hell, Dean specified, and oddly enough his heartbeat skipped—he met the friend he ended up traveling with, Cas, when the guy had gotten Dean out of hell.  And there was all the back story. 

More recently and a little more than a year ago the three of them had been separated, him with Cas out of country and in a very unfriendly place while his brother was still back on home soil.  Dean and Cas had been separated while gone and Dean had spent the better part of the year in that miserable place looking for the other guy. 

One thing Derek found interesting was that Dean said that it wasn’t hell, hell had been worse.  This other place had been terrifying because trying to survive amidst so many enemies cut everything down to only the basest needs and requirements.  But anyways, when Dean finally found Cas, the two of them had then needed to travel some more, trying to get back.  It had been a little shit storm of madness and Dean ended up getting out but Cas had been left behind.  According to Dean, that had been his fault because he couldn’t hold on long enough.  After Dean had gotten back he had gone to meet up with his brother, only to find out that his last remaining kin had met a girl and decided to stay with her, giving Dean his car back and then removing himself from their kind of life.  Dean had tons of praise for his car that Derek shared,—Deans’ car was a 1967 Chevrolet Impala, that’s _pretty_ awesome—but it was dampened by the loss of his brother

Dean trailed off after this, frowning and looking up at Derek from where his head had come to a complete rest on his arm on the bar table.  “I’ve never told anyone that much before.  Not just that, like anything.  Why the hell did I tell you all that?”

“I’ve no idea, but if it makes you feel better I’ll tell you more than I’ve told anyone else too.”  Derek snorted lightly, shaking his head.  From what Dean had told him, it sounded like the man had had a seriously messed up life.  Spending a year in what sounded like a warzone, loosing both people closest to you directly after that? At least Derek had only had to deal with stuff in Beacon Hills and considering how much they got up to there, he couldn’t imagine how bad it’d be out of country.  Least Dean didn’t have to deal with werewolves and hunters, though humans could often be just as bad

 

~*~

 

Dean narrowed his eyes as he suspiciously watched Derek.  He hadn’t been kidding, that was the most he had ever told anyone, in probably, ever.  He was entertaining the thought that Derek was some kind of monster that had randomly stumbled upon a Winchester, but had mostly thrown out that contemplation.  He hadn’t heard Derek’s story yet, so that might change if he was stupid enough to mention the supernatural.  Dean really hoped Derek wasn’t a monster, the guy hadn’t said much but Dean liked him.  And if he had been reading things right, he was also really looking forward to spending the night with Derek. 

Flicking back to conversation as Derek started to talk, Dean realized he really didn’t mind listening.  It was quite nice and definitely sadistic—though he chose not to think of that—that he found it so nice to listen to someone else’s problems for once.  That thought was a bit odd though, and Dean went back to listening as a distraction. 

Surprisingly enough, the two of them were quite alike.  Derek’s whole family had been killed by some psycho bitch that burned their house down when he was younger.  Him and his sister had been the only survivors and had left their hometown for quite a while after.  She had gone back and then been killed, leading him to go back to try and figure out who killed her.  Once there he had met the psycho bitch again, been kidnapped, shot and tortured by her before she was ultimately killed.  To add to that little fun fest Aa wild animal that had been attacking people in the town and around it had also attacked him during the in-between time of the bitch shooting him and being killed.  Bunch of other shit had happened and eventually Derek built up a really close circle of non-blood family.  Once everything had cleared up—the wild animals and psychopaths—they had all left Derek, going off to colleges or just moving away.  Derek hadn’t been able to handle living in the burnt out ghost of his old house and the town, so he had left too. 

The two of them talked and flirted for a little bit more after both their tales had been told, about random anythings from cars to traveling to music.  Derek had a Camero that Dean wanted to see and he actually had okay taste in music, though had never seen the Grand Canyon either.  A little bit after may have been an under-exaggeration, as they ended up talking for all the hours left in the bar and were eventually interrupted by the bartender announcing last call.

“Well aren’t we just a pair.” Dean chuckled, shaking his head as they both startled.  Derek grinned beside him and looked slightly surprised as the amusement.  Dean echoed the grin, examining the bottle he had been drinking from and vaguely admitted that the shot glasses had probably been redundant seeing how little there was left. 

When Derek answered with a laugh and a toast of his own drink to ‘fucked up families’, Dean could only agree, both of them finishing off the bottles and leaving with the mingle of people still there.  Somehow they managed to stay together and, feeling drunk and realizing that there was no Sam around to hide from, Dean moved closer to Derek, tilting his head to the side and belatedly realizing how much he was acting like Cas.  That is, if Cas had ever done what Dean was planning on doing. 

Dean grinned, shifting his stance slightly as he asked, “Since we’re both just passing through and from the sounds of it you haven’t gotten a motel yet, want to come back to mine?”

 

 

Which was basically how Dean found himself on his hands and knees and being thoroughly fucked into the mattress about twenty minutes later.  Derek gasped over him, thrusting in and out and drawing widely uncontrolled moans from the hunter.  Dean prided himself on topping and never really let himself go, but underneath Derek he couldn’t help but make noise, pressing back to meet Derek’s thrusts and panting out for the man to fuck him harder.  In order to not be completely flattened Dean was resting almost fully on his hands, too out of it to try and figure out how to reach down and wrap a hand around himself. 

It was like Derek was reading his mind and a second after the thought processed, the man was reaching down and fisting Dean’s cock, pulling happy moans from the hunter.  It only took a few more thrusts and Derek was coming, pressing down over Dean’s back and losing his rhythm on the hunters cock.  Derek pulled out, flipping Dean over and crawling down his body.  Dean’s mind recovered long enough to leap for joy before Derek mouth enclosed over Dean’s cock and his mind was once again gone, lost in a haze of pleasure.  He barely managed to tug on Derek’s hair in warning, but the man didn’t move back, swallowing down every last drop of Dean’s come. 

Dean’s eyes half lidded and lazy he watched Derek as the man pulled the condom off, throwing it at the garbage and then flopping down next to the hunter.  Dean grinned, rolling over and pressing against Derek.  Sam wasn’t here and it wasn’t like he was going to spend a lot of time with Derek,--unfortunately, his mind helpfully supplied and he subsequently ignored—so why the fuck shouldn’t he keep a man over and curl up to him.  Because really, it wasn’t snuggling.


	2. Well nothing ever went quite exactly as we planned

Derek woke up to a mouth around his cock, bucking up into the wet heat and moaning as he opened his eyes.  He was greeted with the sight of Dean on his knees between the werewolf’s legs and hungrily sucking down his cock, the man’s pretty lips making a delicious picture where they were wrapped around Derek.  He could hear the soft scrape of flesh and knew that Dean was jacking himself, humming around his mouthful and causing Derek to buck up again, just managing to keep his werewolf strength from choking the man. 

Wrapping his hands into Dean’s hair, Derek let himself just lay there and enjoy the attention.  Dean must have been sucking him off for a while because quite soon Derek was reaching his orgasm, his wolf letting out a yip of excitement at the release and desiring Dean in a way that was unusual for Derek’s one night stands.  Dean lazily rolled to the side and continued fisting his cock, a moan hailing him coming as well.

Sitting up slightly and realizing how tired he still was, Derek glanced over at the clock through sleep narrowed eyes. “It’s 5 am!”

“I woke up, we were both hard, now we’re not and I’m going back to sleep.” Dean mumbled and promptly did so.  Derek found himself grinning and barely held back a laugh.  He had nowhere to be and was quite enjoying his time with Dean, who the fuck said it had to be a one night stand if Dean was as not busy as he had sounded when they talked. 

Derek was just drifting off to these nice thoughts when his wolf picked out a random scent, throwing him on the high alert.  What the hell was that?  Slowly he draw himself away from Dean, slipping out of bed and opening his mouth to taste the air.  Breathing deeply, he wandered over to where Dean’s bag was sitting, crouching down next to it and carefully unzipping the top.  Being a werewolf let him be silent enough to not wake up Dean, and also freaked him out when he pulled the bag open.  Wolfsbane, salt, silver and blood assaulted Derek’s senses. 

Dean was a _hunter_.

Oh fuck no, Derek thought, whipping his head back around to look at where the man, the hunter was still sleeping.  That would make sense, with the handprint brand that Derek had noticed but not asked about and the scars. Did Dean know though?  No, no way.  What hunter would willingly let himself be fucked by a werewolf? So Dean didn’t know and Derek was _not_ planning on sticking out long enough for him to find out.  It was a really good thing that he hadn’t stayed longer than he had, Derek thought as he quickly dressed and slid out the door, otherwise he would have gotten really attached.  Especially considering how attached his wolf already was for some unknown and probably terrible reason.   Because he wasn’t the one attached, definitely not.  Having spoken with Dean for a few hours and slept with him wasn’t a good basis for being attached anyways.  It just wasn’t. 

 

So apparently leaving a hotel room at 5 am in the morning, being a werewolf, thinking deeply about fucking a hunter and getting into your car wasn’t a good idea.  Any other time it totally would’ve been okay but since it was his life, Derek had the lovely pleasure to run into three other hunters.  Three other fucking hunters who made no mention of Dean and evidently didn’t know their connection, which was the only plus of the entire night and following morning.  Because these hunters thought that Derek was the Alpha of the pack that apparently lived in the town they were in, and they were quite happy to torture Derek to get information.  Information that Derek didn’t have because he wasn’t the Alpha here, something the hunters refused to believe.  He supposed that it was a good-bad thing.  They kept on torturing him, but at least he wasn’t dead.  Yet.

Derek coughed, spitting up blood as the hunter with red hair kicked him again, he definitely wasn’t getting a rescue in this place, so maybe being dead sooner would be preferable to being tortured until he was dead later.  The wolfsbane that the hunters were using prevented him from healing and the silver they had used to cut him up stung worse than normal wounds.  He shifted in the chair, wincing as the movement caused his dried over wounds from earlier to break open. 

Being upset about his car was honestly worse than the wounds, but those still sucked too.  They had caught him in his car, knocked him over the head with a wolfsbane covered crowbar, dragged him out and bound him before torching the Camaro.  Right in front of him, gasoline and all.  Fucking hunters.

“Now, you’re going to tell us where the rest of your pack is.” The fat hunter spat in Derek’s face and the werewolf flinched back.

“And I already told you, they’re not my pack” He retorted, expecting and bracing himself for the wolfsbane covered knife that was shoved into his thigh at the denial.  Even aware it was coming he couldn’t stop a cry of pain

“Oh, so you’re just an alpha werewolf running around without a pack, going into other alpha’s territories.  I’m sure that that’s exactly what’s happening.” The hunter replied as he twisted the blade. 

A door slamming open and then closed saved Derek from having to give another useless answer, but when he heard the voice of the person who had just arrived he debated whether it would’ve been better to just deal with the torture.

“—so I don’t see why you need my help” Dean snapped in reply to something as he walked into the non-descript room Derek was being held in.  Dean froze at seeing Derek there and the werewolf bared his fanged teeth, angry that the hunter was here with the others and letting out a flicker of dismay before forcing it away and wiping all emotion from his face.  Derek had actually liked the man, quite a bit too, had told him so much—without mentioning the werewolf bit—about his pack leaving and his family dying.  To have Dean here and with these other hunters hurt Derek far more than finding out Dean was a hurter.  But even despite the fact that Dean was a hunter the werewolf couldn’t reconcile the man he had spent the last day beside with these bloodthirsty and sadistic hunters who were torturing him.

The other new hunter, a bald one this time, continued, unaware of the standoff between Derek and Dean. “Because this one won’t give up his pack and we need all the help we can get with the amount of weres in this town.  Bunch of fucking monsters”

Dean was the one to break away his gaze first, turning to reply to the bald hunter.  “Are you sure it’s his pack?”

“Obviously” The red haired one drawled, evidently despairing at the suggestion.  “And I’ll have it noted that I still think we should just kill it and go out to search for the others.  This were’s all cut up and hasn’t said a word, we don’t need it anymore.”

“We aren’t killing it until we can kill each one of his pack mates where it can see” The fat one argued back

Ignoring the continued argument, Dean slipped over to stand in front of Derek, positioning himself so that the werewolf’s face was hidden from the other hunters.  The hunter narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to the side.

 

~*~

 

After waking up to Derek gone Dean had been upset but completely understood.  Yes, he might’ve been thinking about more than one-night, but that didn’t mean that Derek had too.  He had gone for a walk for food while disgustingly hung over and noticed a burnt out Camaro at the side of the road.  Remembering what Derek had said about his black Camaro Dean had been extremely concerned.  When a random hunter had walked up—one Dean had unfortunately had the lack of pleasure to work with before—and told him about needing help with werewolves, Dean had been intrigued, thinking that it might have something to do with Derek. 

Seeing Derek with red eyes, fangs and covered in wounds from torture had knocked the breath out of Dean.  Derek was a werewolf.  A fucking werewolf who had fucked him, and he hadn’t even known.  But if what he had told Dean was true, he wasn’t a threat.  Funny thing that Dean had come out of purgatory—a place where he had spend his whole time slaughtering monsters—more inclined to differentiate between monster-monster and not completely harmful monster.

“Was what you told me before true?  Other than the missing werewolf part of course” Dean spoke under his breath so that the hunters couldn’t hear him.  Derek looked seriously terrible, covered in dried blood and still bleeding wounds.  Dean had no idea why, he had just met the man—werewolf, apparently—a day ago, but the sight of him tortured like this was making all of Dean’s protective instincts usually reserved for Sam or Cas blare like there was no tomorrow. 

Derek looked slightly surprised at this question but didn’t bother to reply, just glaring at Dean, his eyes a glowing red.  While normally Dean would’ve taken that to mean that the werewolf was just another lying monster, the amount of badly covered betrayal in Derek’s eyes did wonders to his trust scale.  Thinking from Derek’s position, Dean had slept with him, gotten his trust and then the werewolf was captured by these pigs that Dean had walked in with.  Plus if he had spilled his heart out to someone who killed his kind, he’d be just a bit betrayed.  

“Fine! Fine, we’ll come to a compromise.” Chad, the hunter who looked like a couch potato, broke through Dean’s thoughts.  “Keep on trying to get information from it.  If it says where the rest of its pack is kill it quickly, if not, you can start to kill it in two hours.”

 “Hey Winchester” Scott, the bald one who looked like an actual potato spoke up suddenly, “I’ve heard you’re a great torturer, you wanna have a go at the werewolf?”

Instantly Dean stilled and forgot all about Derek, turning his head slightly to better see Scott.  Hell had been years ago, and no one on Earth would know what he had done in purgatory, so how the fuck did he know about that?  A sharp intake of breath from Derek put Dean further on edge but he didn’t waste time trying to figure out why he was so upset over a werewolf’s opinion of him.

“Where did you hear that?” Dean asked, forcing himself to act casual.  He was quite lucky that these hunters—if that’s what they were—were stupid enough not to notice his moment of hesitation.

“You know, just around” Scott replied nonchalantly and Dean realized that the hunter was baiting him.  Yup, pretty sure not actually a hunter, Dean had been wrong about Derek after all.  Sam may have been the one to usually come up with intelligent plans, but he wasn’t there and never let it be said that Dean couldn’t improvise.  These hunters weren’t smart enough to be the type who dealt with demons, so…

“Did you hear it at a certain place, or perhaps you were told by Christo?” Dean asked with the same nonchalance, pausing when both Scott’s and red haired Tim’s eyes flashed black.  Apparently Chad was just collateral damage. “Ah, of course.  That’s where you found out.”

Tim laughed, letting go of whatever human pretence he had.  “Come now Winchester, when else would we get to see Alistair’s apprentice in action?  You must’ve learned so much in hell”

Dean inwardly flinched at the name, “Alistair’s dead and gone buddy.  I take it you aren’t Crowley’s lot then, he usually has more fanfare.”

“Crowley’s a white collar, you think we could care less for all those exciting politics?” Scott replied, strolling forwards with an angry grin on his face. 

Confirming Dean’s belief that these hunters were idiots, Chad decided at that moment to speak up, “What the fuck are you all talking about?”

 

~*~

 

Dean had to have been waiting for the fat hunter to draw the black-eyed hunter’s attention, because he moved like a flash.  While Derek’s mind was still rolling with all the unexplained information, Dean uncapped a flask he had pulled from seemingly nowhere and whipped it forwards, splashing both black-eyes and causing them to howl as their skin bubbled.  He turned back to Derek in the commotion and Derek flinched as he also produced a knife, but Dean only used it to slash his bonds apart.

“Come with me, don’t try and fight the demons” Dean hissed, grabbing Derek’s arm and pulling him up.  _Demons_? Okay, what? 

Derek debated on ripping Dean’s throat out and running, but knew there was no way he’d be able to heal and get out in time, plus, if they actually were demons he’d be completely screwed.  With this split second decision, Derek ran, leaning on Dean as the other pushed him through the door, slamming it closed behind him and locking it.  The two of them continued to race through the house and Derek was surprised to find that it actually was a house, bedrooms, kitchen and everything.  The latter apparently where they were heading, still closing doors behind them

“Will those keep them out?” Derek asked, leaning against the wall and pressing down on the wound in his thigh as they stumbled to a stop

“Look for salt” Dean ordered without answering and Derek snarled in anger.  He knew the hunter had saved him but anything he said was suspect.  Dean turned back at the snarl, brandishing his knife.  “Listen Derek, I could’ve just left you for the demons to take apart like they’re probably doing with flabby Chady back there, so unless you want to end up like him, look for salt.  I’m not going to kill you until I need to, and I suggest you pass out the same courtesy.  All in the name of survival ‘cause if you didn’t know those were demons than I know you’ve no fucking idea how to kill them.”

With this declaration, Dean turned back to opening cupboards, somehow still keeping Derek in view as he searched.  The completely weird sight of a hunter pretty much turning his back on an alpha werewolf was what spurred Derek into motion and he threw open the cupboards nearest.  Dean didn’t smell like wolfsbane, though it wasn’t like Derek would really be able to tell with the amount already in his system.  Speaking of which, Derek was finding that his body wasn’t exactly working correctly, as evidenced by the fact that he unintentionally shoved over three boxes of cereal and ended up kneeing on the floor, puking out black liquid and completely unable to defend himself if Dean chose to attack. 

“Dude, what the fuck’s happening to you?” The aforementioned hunter asked, and that couldn’t be concern Derek heard. 

The hunter was moving around behind him and Derek fought to turn, wiping his mouth and rasping out, “Wolfsbane”

Dean tilted his head but didn’t pause in what he was doing.  Which, in this case, appeared to be lining the entrances to the kitchen in salt and then putting his back to the wall so he was hidden from sight of the hallway.  Very carefully, he _almost_ broke the salt line in one place, still watching Derek uncertainly but seemingly putting away his worries for the time being.

“Tell me if they’re both coming at once, other than that, pretend I’m behind the counter” Dean whispered an order.  Derek didn’t have time to question what the hunter was doing before the door into the hallway was kicked open and the red haired hunter raced through, his arms covered in blood and his eyes black. 

Remembering what Dean had told him, Derek forced himself to look away from both threats in the room as if he was looking for reassurance, black liquid still dribbling from his mouth.  The black-eyed hunter raced forwards, skidding to a stop just outside the salt as the second hunter strolled through the door behind.

“The second one’s there too” Derek informed Dean through spitting up more bile. 

“Someone has been careless with their protections.  I expected better from you than that.” Red hair mock pouted, looking where Derek had been addressing

Once again things happened at a speed that should’ve been supernatural.  Red hair threw back his head and Dean stood up, twisting as he stabbed his knife into red hair’s throat.  The black-eyed hunter screamed and an orange outline of his ribs and skull flashed once before the hunter dropped dead over the salt line, sulfur permeating the air.  The bald black-eyed hunter also screamed, this time in rage, throwing up his hand and somehow pushing Dean back and into the wall beside Derek.  Dean’s knife clattered to the ground and Baldy strode up to him, grabbing Dean’s throat in his hand. 

“You little fucker, that guy was fun!” Baldy hissed in protest at his fellows’ death.  Dean was struggling to breathe now and so Derek did the only thing that came to mind, scooping up Dean’s knife and putting his last bit of strength into standing and stabbing Baldy in the back.  Dean was released from the wall just as Derek passed out.


	3. We were certainly uncertain, at least I'm pretty sure I am

Dean swore as Derek fell, only barely managing to catch the werewolf before he hit the ground.  Damn, the dude was heavy.  Luckily for him Dean had a giraffe for a brother, who had needed many times to be dragged around while unconscious or cursed, so he just heaved Derek over his shoulder, grabbing his knife and quickly sheathing it before he left the bodies of the dead demons.  The trip down to baby was uneventful and he was able to load the werewolf into the passenger seat without anyone seeing.  There were generally questions when one was found carrying around an unconscious and tortured dude covered in blood. 

Dean only allowed himself to ponder on what the fuck he had just done on the ride back to his motel.  He couldn’t care less about Chad’s death, the dude was a complete fuck up and would’ve been quickly picked off anyways.  Not a hunter that Dean had grown attached to, like Garth—the list ended pretty quickly there, considering that everyone else Dean had been attached to was dead.  Neither demon had escaped either, which left what Dean was trying to avoid, the problem of Derek.  The guy had seemed really sincere throughout the time they spent together, coupled with the betrayed look on his face when he had seen Dean with the hunters suggested that some, if not all, of the stuff he had said was the truth.  A psycho bitch who burnt down his family’s home and killing almost all the members could be a hunter, one like Chad and those fucks.  The wild animal attacks, another werewolf perhaps?  The non-blood family thing was definitely a pack, which made the whole abandonment thing even worse.  Being left behind willingly was always worse than your loved ones dying. 

The impala screeched into the motel parking lot and he managed a rushed park job, looking around for possible spectators before he went to get Derek out.  An old lady was getting out of her car to go to her house across from the motel, so Dean waited, glancing at Derek and thinking in the meantime.  One real thing for certain, though Dean had no idea _why_ it was for certain, he wasn’t letting the werewolf die.  Sure, he was exactly that, a werewolf, but he hadn’t been going around killing people, he _had_ been up close and personal with Dean’s neck without doing anything and plus, the hunter was actually fond of him.  So no letting Derek die until he was given reason to. 

None of the guys wounds were healing though, the red eyes suggesting that Derek was one of the odd strain of werewolves, categorized into Alphas, Betas, and Omegas and while immune to things like silver were really affected by wolfsbane.  Red eyes meant Alpha, the top of the food chain.  Dean didn’t think there was anything in his father’s journal about actually healing werewolves instead of killing them, but maybe he could ask—oh, right.  Bobby’s dead too.  There went that plan.

Luckily the old lady disappeared before Dean had to go further down memory lane and Dean got out of the car, going around to the other side and pulling Derek out to awkwardly support him into Dean’s motel room.  Laying the werewolf down on the bed, Dean started by cleaning him off, finding towels and wetting them with water from the bathroom.  Getting the wolfsbane off of him would help more than aimlessly standing around. 

Peeling off Derek’s shirt, Dean winced at the mangled sight that awaited him.  The hunter and demons had really done a number on the guy, cuts and gashes that bled black lines across Derek’s skin.  There was a sluggishly bleeding stab wound in his thigh that Dean couldn’t get to with jeans in the way, so he stripped the werewolf of them too.  He wasn’t sure if it was more or less awkward than helping his brother treat wounds.  It had become usual, but Sam was his _brother_ and there were many personal things about him that Dean had no desire to know.  Derek was almost a stranger, but also was almost a stranger who had quite happily fucked Dean the night before.  Nudeness wasn’t exactly foreign at this point. 

Most of the black lines were bleeding out as Dean cleaned up the wounds connected to them but the one on Derek’s thigh wasn’t looking anywhere closer to healing.  Dean forewent stitching the gashes due to what he knew about the speed of werewolf healing and set to work on cleaning out the stab wound, trying to recall if he had ever come across anything in books about this type of werewolf healing before. 

Son of a bitch!  Ashes! Dean sat up suddenly, remembering a hunt that him and Sam had went on where Sam had made him research how the werewolves were healing so quickly.  It had been because they kept a huge collection of wolfsbane that they kept on running to, burning it and healing themselves.  In the end Dean and Sam had found the room with the wolfsbane and used it against the wolves, collecting the rest and taking it with them.

Rushing back out to the impala, Dean grabbed his bag and brought it back in, searching through it for wolfsbane.  It was perhaps morbid that Dean was using memories of a hunt where he killed an Alpha and her pack to heal another Alpha, but he elected not to focus on the irony right now.  Grabbing his lighter and the plant, Dean quickly burnt it, smudging the remains it into the sluggishly bleeding stab wound.  To his relief, the black dissipated, proving that Dean had done something right in remembering an otherwise useless fact.

As soon as Derek started to show signs of healing enough to bring him back to consciousness, Dean stood back.  He gave up completely on Derek’s clothes after only glancing at them and grabbed a pair of his own jeans and a shirt, dropping them onto the bed beside the werewolf and moving over to the chair in the room.  Sitting down, he checked to make sure he had his gun and his knife, just in case. 

A movement alerted Dean to Derek coming round and the hunter sat up, tapping his knife against his knee.  He really didn’t want to kill Derek but really _did_ need to know if he could trust the guy.  After all, the guy was a fucking werewolf.  One of the things that Dean killed, and unlike the vampire Benny, Derek had nothing Dean needed from him and therefore should reasonably be killed on the spot rather than healed. 

Morbid thoughts aside, Dean had left Derek untethered and could tell the werewolf had noticed by his slight movements as he checked for bonds even before opening his eyes.  Dean bit his lip before smoothing out his face as he watched the wolf, hoping he wasn’t making a mistake with that show of good will.  Again, he didn’t particularly want to kill Derek, but he would do so without any hesitation if need be. 

 

~*~

 

Derek honestly wasn’t sure what he more surprised by when he woke up.  Either the fact the he woke up or that he wasn’t chained and or tied down when he did so.  Opening his eyes, he quickly located the hunter, sitting on the chair with his fancy knife and tapping it up and down on his knee.  The movement might’ve been interpreted as threatening to anyone else, but Derek had seen Stiles fidget enough to know that it was automatic.  Additionally, from the lack of poisoning and the smell of burnt wolfsbane, Derek reasoned that the hunter had healed him and so wasn’t going to quickly turn around and commit murder.  Derek also happened to only be in his boxers, but there was very thoughtfully a shirt and pair of jeans sitting beside him to correct that.  He didn’t pull them on yet, but it was still quite nice. 

“Was all of what you told me before true?” Dean broke the silence by repeating the question from earlier.  His face was carefully blank, but he smelled uncertain, nervous, angry and regretful. 

“I could ask you the same thing.  _Winchester_ ” Derek retorted, pushing himself up into a sitting position and pleased to note that his werewolf healing had kicked in overtime.  Considering Dean was a Winchester, Derek had less of an idea as to why he was kept alive, being at full strength was a really good idea.  Winchesters were the supernatural creature’s boogiemen.  Where the Argents were big, the Winchesters were _huge,_ well known and extremely well feared all over America and some parts of Canada.   They went around and hunted everything, werewolves, vampires, and, apparently given what Derek recalled of the past few hours, demons.  Who knows, maybe more.

“If you’ve heard my name before then line up what I’ve told you and figure it out for yourself.” Dean suggested, his voice cold.

Derek scowled but thought about what he knew.  The Winchesters—Dean and Sam—were said to hunt with the aid of a supernatural creature that could kill with a single touch, which would be Dean’s friend.  “Cas, your friend.  What is he?”

“Angel of the Lord” Dean replied unnervingly.  His heart didn’t skip with any lie, so Derek shied away from that answer, not wanting to be faced with angels or demons until he had gotten this whole thing with Dean cleared up a bit more. 

“You said he saved you from hell, and you have a handprint shaped brand on your arm” Derek said slowly, thinking back to what he remembered of their first conversation and certain moments after.  “Plus the demon said you were a great torturer, which I’m curious as to how that happened in only four months.”

Derek purposefully left it open-ended and was glad he did so at Dean’s reaction.  Visibly the flinch was very small, almost imperceptible, but his scent changed drastically, rage, guilt and loss spiraling through him in waves.  Dean did answer though, starting with what sounded like a quote “’Gripped me tight and raised me from perdition’, ya, he left the handprint on me.  And time moves slower in hell than it does up here, I was downstairs for forty years before Cas got me out.”

“Where did you leave him?  Where were you for the last year?” Derek asked, knowing as soon as the words left his mouth that he was being too harsh in his questioning.  Reverting back to the scowling sourwolf he had been before he made a pack and in their beginning days.  Well, hearing that the hunter he had somehow become attached to had been in hell for forty years might do that to someone.  Still, hunter.

“Purgatory” Dean answered, his voice tight.

Right, Derek thought, closing his eyes and breathing deeply, trying to ignore the fact that he was grounding himself in the hunters whisky, leather, salt and ozone filled scent.  Purgatory, hell, angels and demons.  This shit was all way over Derek’s head.  He was a fucking Alpha but had no idea how to react to this casual mentioning of the afterlife and the creatures it contained.  At least most of what Dean said actually made sense.  So much fucking sense, but made Derek want to run to something safe, to really ground himself.  To feel body heat and be able to breathe in the smell of home, of Stiles, Isaac and his whole pack, now so causally dispersed.

“The bitch who burned your family, she was a hunter?” Dean broke through Derek’s panic and his eyes snapped open.  Crap, he had just closed his eyes around a hunter.  Completely spaced out.  Oh yes, _great_ Alpha skills. 

 “Yes” Derek answered tightly

Dean nodded as if he’d expected it, but no judgment crossed his face.  Considering how easily he’d left and killed the other hunters, Derek wasn’t exactly surprised. 

“What now?” Derek asked when the silence became too much.

“I’m not going to kill you if that’s what you’re asking.”  Dean replied. 

Derek snorted in amusement, but despite himself he relaxed at the statement.  Perhaps he shouldn’t be so trusting after the whole mess with Kate so long ago, but now he had no one to lose except this hunter who he didn’t really have in the first place.  Why the fuck not believe him.  “Okay, but what _are_ you going to do now?”

This time Dean did look surprised, biting his lip and frowning.  It didn’t look like he was hesitating to tell Derek, but rather like he didn’t even know the answer to that question.

 

~*~

 

The werewolf’s question reverberated in Dean’s head, and he realized he really didn’t have an answer other than one that was impossible. “I’m going to get Cas back.”

“From purgatory?” Derek asked incredulously, the words asking _how_ left unspoken, but there all the same. 

“I have to.  I owe him more than leaving him in that place” Dean retorted defensively.  “And I’ll figure something out.  What are _you_ going to do?”

Derek chose to glare in reply to that, his expression reminding Dean of one of Cas’.  ‘ _I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m an all-powerful angel so I’m going to do it anyways’._   Except in this case werewolf would replace angel.  Alpha-fucking werewolf. 

Together with that last thought, it had to be insanity that prompted Dean into offering, “If you’ve got nothing else to do you could help me.”

Yup.  Definitely insanity.  And probably a little bit of input from his downstairs brain, not that he was going to admit it.  From Derek’s shocked expression, the werewolf was likely wondering the same thing. 

“Go with you to get your angel back from purgatory.” Derek stated, as if waiting for Dean to say that he had misheard.  Instead of doing the logical thing and denying everything, Dean nodded.  After a few moments Derek confirmed Dean’s thoughts of insanity.  “You’re insane.  You’re a hunter and I’m an Alpha, and you want us to work together to get an _angel_ out of the place where werewolves go when we die?”

Dean scowled, feeling off balance.  “You don’t have to.  It was just an offer”

“An insane offer” Derek muttered, but then ruined it by answering, “Alright.  I’ll go with you.”

“Why?”  Dean blurted out, unable to stop himself.  Odd question considering he didn’t even know why he’d offered in the first place

Derek gave him a long measuring look, then a corner of his mouth quirked up in a sad smirk.  “Because we’re practically the same, I don’t have anyone else to lose, and you’ve only got your angel who you’ve already lost.  So why not?”

Dean stiffened at the reminder that he had lost Cas, but he didn’t argue.  He _had_ lost Cas, and the werewolf was fucking right.  With all the supernatural stuff now spoken for, their lives really were alike.  So he nodded again, standing up and pausing as Derek moved into a more defensive position.  “Again, I’m not going to kill you unless you attack me.  And on that note are you okay? Like, with the wolfsbane and all that?”

Derek grinned at the awkward picture Dean made.  The hunter trying to take care of the werewolf.  “I’m good”

“Alright” Dean replied, frowning slightly over how amused Derek looked.  It wasn’t Dean’s fault that he had no idea what to do with an injured werewolf other than burn wolfsbane or kill it. “I’m going to get dinner, if you change your mind don’t be here when I get back.”

“For some reason I’ve made up my mind to stay with you, so that’s what I’m going to do.  But I do have to go back to my Camaro and see if I can get anything from it” Derek retorted, scowling at the second part of his answer.   

Dean stopped, having not let Derek fully out of his sight he only had to turn back a little.  So the burnt out Camaro had been Derek’s?  Just to confirm he asked, “What do you mean, get anything from it?”

“They set it on fire” Came the monotone answer.  Dean winced, even with all the damage that had happened to his baby, it had never been torched, something Dean was quite glad for.  Even with his awesome skills there were a few things that cars really couldn’t come back from.

“Alright” He replied finally, “I don’t have a second key though.”

Derek didn’t look too upset over this, instead nodding and standing up, quickly pulling on the clothes Dean had given him.  “Then I’ll go with you, you can explain what happened with those black-eyed hunters on the way.  I’ve never seen them before”

Unbidden Dean laughed, shaking his head in amusement.  “From the sounds of it, there is a lot of stuff you’ve never seen before.”

Dean couldn’t help but grin at the glare Derek shot his way.  He really had no reason to trust this werewolf, but it felt right and, like Derek had said previously; why not?

 


	4. Well uh-uh baby I ain't got no plan, we'll float on maybe would you understand?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, and here the OOCness begins. Again, like I said before, reasons for it are explored in later chapters, avoided, distracted and then explored again. Hope it works for you all, thanks for reading :)

It was much later when the untrusting awkwardness came back full force from where it had hidden in plain sight with awkward glances and flinch backs.  They had decided on going to Derek’s Camaro first and the werewolf had managed to get some clothing, money, cards and other necessities from it, though not all that much.  After they had both thoroughly went over the cars corpse Derek had shrugged and looked slightly upset, but as it hadn’t been the first time everything he had burned, he attempted to let it go.  From there they drove to a diner and over their meals Dean had spoken of demons, angels and all manner of creatures that shouldn’t reasonably exist, along with his own incredible life.  They had one-sidedly debated for a while on whether a demon could possess a werewolf, and in the end Derek decided to get a tattoo just in case.  Traveling with Dean would expose him to the Winchesters demon enemies so it only made sense for him to be protected.  Throughout it all, neither Derek nor Dean had let the other go fully unwatched.  Again, just in case. 

Which brought them to now, with one bed for a hunter and an Alpha. 

“Do you want to get your own room?”  Dean asked as he sorted through his bag for his toothbrush in an attempt to lower the high levels of tension.  

“Should I?” Derek asked, and Dean was suddenly aware of how much closer the werewolf was now, standing up and turning to face him.  Dean narrowed his eyes, searching Derek’s eyes.  In all honesty, he really didn’t want the werewolf to get his own room, ‘cause yes, he was a creature that Dean hunted, but also one that had fucked him, laid over him in such a position of vulnerability and hadn’t made any motions to hurt or bite him, and maybe, just maybe he wanted Derek to do it again.  Granted, he hadn’t known Derek was a werewolf at the time, but against his better judgment, Dean still wanted that closeness.  Just to add to the patheticness, he didn’t want to be alone.

Moving closer to Derek and far into his personal space, Dean repeated himself softly, each exhale brushing Derek’s lips.  “Do you want to?”

Derek answered him with a kiss, closing that last bit of distance between them and pressing himself fully against Dean.  Inordinately pleased with Derek’s choice, Dean reciprocated, pushing his tongue against Derek’s and fighting for dominance.  After a few seconds he submitted, letting Derek take control of the kiss.  In retaliation for that particular submission however, Dean reached forwards, grabbing Derek’s hips and sliding his hands underneath the shirt he had lent the werewolf.  He broke the kiss to get the shirt off, and Derek took the chance to divest Dean of his as well.  The skin to skin contact made Dean moan and when the werewolf started to push him back to the bed he completely complied.  He had had no idea why in sex with Derek he was the one to submit, but in a loose and soon lost thought he wondered if it had to do with the other being an Alpha.

 

~*~

 

Pushing Dean back down onto the bed, Derek leaned down, liking a line up the hunters neck and then latching on, his wolf growling in pleasure as Dean tilted his head back.  The hunter rolled his hips up into Derek and he bit down harder, not enough to break the skin, but definitely enough to mark. 

Dean pushed him and Derek froze for a second, wondering if he had gone too far but then Dean spoke, gasping out, “Clothes, off”

Derek grinned at the demand, stepping back and pulling down his pants and boxers.  Once they were both completely naked, Derek crawled back on top of Dean, rubbing their cocks together as he reclaimed the hunter’s lips.  Dean’s hand wrapping around both their lengths made Derek buck, and he broke the kiss to once again nuzzle into Dean’s neck.  His wolf was snarling at him to _take_ , to claim completely now that Dean knew what he was, but Derek hushed it, letting the movement continue for a little longer before grabbing Dean’s wrist and pulling it away.  He wanted this to last.

“What—” Dean started, but then Derek was leaning over to grab the lube and another condom that were still sitting on the table from the morning and night before.  Dean made a halfhearted attempt at dislodging Derek’s hold, but the werewolf ignored it, popping the cap open one handed and sitting back.   Derek looked down at the hunter, meeting his eyes and raising one eyebrow in question. 

“Get rid of the condom you’re a werewolf.  Just fuck me” Dean pressed, reaching up and threading his hand around the back of Derek’s neck to pulling him in for another kiss.  Distractedly Derek dribbled lube onto his hand, spilling some on the bed but uncaring as he dropped the bottle to the side.  Without breaking the kiss, Derek reached down, trailing his fingers along Dean’s skin but avoiding Dean’s cock and chuckling at the whine of displeasure that turned into a moan when Derek rubbed his finger over Dean’s hole.  Though all he wanted to do was flip Dean over and just _take_ , he forced himself to spread the lube carefully, slowly pressing a finger into that tight heat. 

Gasping at the intrusion, Dean let his head fall back, his hands still running along Derek’s sides.  The werewolf pressed in further, taking his time before adding a second finger.  Dean let out another groan and then reached up, grabbing the back of Derek’s neck and causing his wolf to let out a growl that he only just managed to suppress. 

“Hurry up, and fuck me.  Come on, you’re supposed to be an Alpha.”  Dean taunted, his tone demanding with a teasing edge as he fucked himself down onto Derek’s fingers. 

The werewolf didn’t need any more encouragement than that, yanking his fingers out and momentarily leaving the hunter bereft before flipping Dean over like his wolf was commanding.  He knew that his eyes had turned red, but Dean gave no indication that there was anything wrong other than the lack of something in his ass.  Derek could feel his claws and fangs elongating as his wolf chanted its need, and he paused for a moment to try and push it back down.  He had almost managed when Dean pressed back, hungrily pushing against his cock with a cut off whine. 

“Cock slut” Derek murmured, roughly grabbing the hunter’s thighs and splaying them wide as he let his wolf claim.  His claws left score marks where they had grabbed Dean but Derek barely noticed, lining himself up with Dean’s hole and then thrusting into the barely prepped channel with one smooth movement.  His wolf howling its approval mixed with Dean’s gasp and Derek leaned over Dean, grabbing his hips and scraping his teeth dangerously over the hunter’s neck, loving the tight heat surrounding his cock.  Rather than freak out like any normal hunter, any normal _human_ , Dean bared his neck further, only gasping out that Derek better not Turn him.  It was enthralling, having this Winchester, this rightly feared hunter beneath him, submitting to Derek and baring his neck for his Alpha.  Giving into Derek’s will and allowing himself to be fucked.

Derek moaned greedily, pulling out almost to the tip of his cock before roughly snapping back in, allowing his wolf what it needed as he set up a punishing pace.  Scrapping his claws up and down the hunters sides, Derek took him rougher than he had the first night—with permission to not hide his supernatural side, he let it out.  Even back in Beacon Hills that when he had fucked Stiles he hadn’t been able to let his wolf go as completely as he was being verbally demanded to do here.  Having Dean underneath him now, meeting his thrusts and moaning at the marks that were being clawed into his skin, Derek felt like he could actually give in.  The moaned requests of ‘harder’ and ‘faster’, the fact that Dean was being so needy and responsive to everything Derek did also really helped.  The handprint that stood out starkly against Dean’s arm infuriated the wolf as it showed a prior ownership, but Derek managed to ignore it, turning his face to the other side so he wouldn’t have to see anyone else’s claim on his human.  How Dean became his human, the werewolf had no idea.

Feeling himself reaching completion, Derek sped up, his hands tightening around Dean’s hips as he forced himself not to bend down that last little bit and bite the skin on display on the back of Dean’s neck.  However much his wolf cried out to completely claim Dean, to bite him and knot him, Derek knew that was one line he couldn’t cross.  _Not yet_ , his wolf traitorously replied, softly murmuring _mate_.

When his wolf thought that word, Derek couldn’t stand it anymore and pressed his slightly open mouth to Dean’s spine, scraping his fangs lightly and enjoying the strangled noise that Dean made as he came untouched.  The tightening around Derek’s cock was all he needed and he unwillingly turned his face away from the tanned skin, slamming one last time into Dean and spending himself inside the now lax hunter. 

Collapsing onto Dean and feeling his claws slide out of the hunters hips, Derek barely managed to fall to the side, pulling out and enjoying Deans groan at the movement.  Derek watched the hunter roll over to face Derek, distantly wondering where he got the energy but deeming it unimportant.  When Dean was fully facing Derek with his eyes closed and looking like he was slipping into sleep, Derek rolled over too, pulling up the covers of the bed as his wolf now insisted that he take care of Dean.  Slipping his hand around Dean’s side, Derek pulled the hunter towards him, nuzzling into his dark hair and breathing in the new scent that had become so familiar.  Somehow and for some reason, Dean smelt like pack.  It was with those warm thoughts of peace and _home_ that Derek fell asleep.

 

~*~

 

When Dean woke up, he was convinced that he had gone ten rounds with a wendigo, a bunch of rugarus’ and perhaps a hellhound or two.  Okay, not the hellhounds, but the rest, definitely.  And, he thought, stiffening, whatever it was, it was still there, wrapped around Dean like some giant octopus.  The result of tensing however brought whatever aches he had back full force and he groaned, unable to keep the noise from slipping out.  The arms around him tightened momentarily and whoever Dean’s octopus friend was made out a protesting noise at the movement.  Oh right, not octopus friend, werewolf friend.  Which meant that all the pain and laxness Dean was currently feeling was the result of being fucked by an Alpha werewolf who didn’t need to pretend to be human.  Holy fuck that hurt and—finally remembering the night and day before—Dean _really_ wanted to do it again.  Not for a while of course.  But still, this was absolutely not going to be a onetime thing. 

Deciding against moving again, Dean took stock of himself to see how long he would need before he could get back on the road.  He was extremely well sated, but his ass burned due to his newfound greediness from the night before.  His hips felt bruised and clawed open along with the rest of his sides, the tackiness murmuring a warning of spilt blood.  Plus the taste of blood in his mouth from biting his lip to keep all the begging in, because Winchester’s did not beg Alpha werewolves to fuck them.  Unless, apparently, Dean thought in a daze, said Alpha was Derek.  Even then he had managed to keep quite a few words in. Anyways, all in all, movement was probably not happening for a very long time.

As Derek hadn’t actually woken up yet,—from what Dean could tell—he had time to think about how oddly submissive he had been.  A complete cockslut like Derek had said.  Seriously, what the fuck was up with that?  Okay, so Dean could understand some submissiveness, he had needed it when he was younger and turning tricks to feed Sammy, plus what he had learned in hell, but this had been way past that, and done completely willingly!  He had even liked it!  Dean had felt like he needed to please Derek, needed to take everything he could and more from the werewolf.  All he could compare it to was the Alpha’s call from when Dean had been Turned into a vampire.  Except that this time Dean hadn’t resisted, he had accepted it, which turned into giving in, which turned into needing more.  But it hadn’t felt bad like a spell or compulsion with the vampires, just, natural.

“Dean?” Derek’s voice cut into Dean’s ruminations, and the hunter finally opened his eyes, meeting Derek’s concerned brown ones, no longer red with his wolf.  “Are you okay?”

Well, whatever Dean had been expecting, that hadn’t exactly been it.  From the widening of the werewolf’s eyes and the extremely concerned way he looked at Dean however, he had heard what he thought he had.

“Hmm?” Dean replied wordlessly, relaxing more against the pain.  “I’m fine, let me sleep.”

“Fuck” Derek’s shallow swear gave Dean pause, and he was surprised to feel Derek reach out and rest his hand against Dean’s chest, black lines running up it. 

“What was that?” Dean asked, now awake and on the alert.  Yes, his hunting instincts and trust issues had completely disappeared around Derek, but he wanted to know what any supernatural influences were that were used on him.  Granted, said supernatural influence felt like it was taking away any pain, but it was always good to find out.

Derek confirmed this, and then, pulling his hand back, gestured at Dean, softly saying, “Sorry, shit, I’m sorry.”

Confuse at this, Dean looked down and paused, staring at himself.  His hips were a mess of blood, puncture wounds and bruises visible under the dried blood forming the shapes of Derek’s hands from where he had held Dean.  All up the hunters side’s there were thin scratches, some just red lines and others actually cutting into him.  It really wasn’t that bad.  Granted, Dean hadn’t ever received cuts like these before in sex, but hey, it had been really fun.  Even if it had been with a werewolf.  That should be a bad thing that set Dean’s alarms flaring, ‘cause, you know, _werewolf_.  But it was Derek’s own fault for looking like a beaten puppy, Sam was supposed to be the one with the soft heart.  Seriously, Dean was the one who killed monsters like there was no tomorrow because they were monsters, even if they hadn’t hurt him. 

But it had been so fucking nice.  Sure, Dean may be a bit iffy about the whole rough sex thing, but that’s because he only got laid on the road, and no one trusted complete strangers enough to get into the more taboo stuff.  And Lisa had been kinda vanilla, all things considered, so maybe Dean just hadn’t experimented enough.  Which was something he’d never thought to accuse himself of, but come to think of it, all those times that Cas had acted like a badass angel of the Lord and/or beat the hunter up he _had_ been pretty hot.  Okay, so Dean was definitely into this kind of stuff.  Previously and noticed too late with an angel, and now with a werewolf.  How freaking weird.

Motion brought Dean out of his musings—seriously, so many musings over the past few days—and he glanced back up to see Derek backing up, a slightly panicked look on his face.  Well, actually thinking about it in a different way, something like this could be quite disturbing.  Maybe, his downstairs brain disagreed.  The werewolf probably thought Dean was going to kick him out.

“When I wake up, I’m getting the first shower.” Dean yawned, grimacing around the taste of iron “Maybe a couple more hours.  What time is it?”

Derek made a sound like a strangled cat, seemingly absolutely flabbergasted. “That’s all?”

“I could sleep the whole day, but considering there were demons here and that hunter we left behind, only a few hours should suffice.” Dean replied drowsily, deliberately misunderstanding.  Seriously, after all the deep thoughts he had had this morning, he really did want to sleep some more, he could deal with actual conversations later.

“You should get up so you can get cleaned” Derek said after Dean had already started to drift back to sleep.  He made an unhappy noise at the prospect of movement, but flicked his eyes back open, blinking slowly at Derek.  The werewolf did have a valid point, these motel sheets were probably really gross.  With blood play in sex people were generally smart enough to clean themselves up rather than risk infection.  Even accidental blood play, if that’s what this was called.

After letting out an annoyed acquiesce Dean lay still for a few more seconds, but eventually rolled out of bed, groaning at the motion when some of the aches returned.  Ah well, he would make it to the bathroom.  Just to prove himself right, he did, walking in and coming to a stop in front of the mirror to assess himself.  His torso was smeared with blood, bruised and covered in semen, but he ignored it, turning around to see how his back had fared, noticing that Derek was still motionless on the bed. 

And wow.  His back was a lot worse.  More blood, more bruising, more semen dribbling down his leg, scratches and places that were almost bite marks.  Real bite marks would’ve sucked, and he might’ve actually had to kill Derek.  Scratch the might, if he got Turned into something again, he would’ve definitely killed Derek.  So, all in all, good thing the only full bite marks were from human teeth. 

This probably meant that Dean could trust Derek a bit more now too, contrary to what emotionally healthy people would say.  But seriously, when had Dean even claimed to be emotionally healthy?   In the dictionary under the term for fucked in the head was a picture of Dean, probably one from him in hell or through the bottom of a bottle. 

Anyways, back to Derek, with Sam and that fucking bitch Ruby saving his life, there had been the end game of the apocalypse.  Now, there was nothing going on that Derek could be keeping him alive for.  No angel things, alpha things, big giant baddies other than Crowley.  If Derek had wanted to kill or Turn him, he had had plenty of time when Dean was completely gone underneath him, mentally and quite possibly vocally begging the werewolf for anything.  Really, it would’ve been all too easy and Dean wouldn’t have noticed until he was back on the rack. 

Plus, Derek would be useful in purgatory. Last time Dean had Benny to watch his back, having an Alpha werewolf would be really awesome. Granted, that would only happen if Derek didn't attack him first, but Dean had already just established that that situation was very unlikely. So really it was a matter of waiting, of seeing how things turned out and hoping for the best while being passively prepared for the worst. 

“Can you also help me fix myself up after I get out of the shower?” Dean asked, glancing at Derek to receive his nod.  Finished with examining himself in the mirror, Dean kicked the door closed out of habit and ambled over to the shower.  Once again wincing at the movements, he paused before getting in.  Oh dear Castiel, please let there be hot water.


	5. I didn't die and I ain't complainin', I ain't blamin' you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for this one being so short, the next chapter is back up to usual lengths

Derek sat on the bed frozen, uncertain as the shower started up.  He almost wanted to leave so that he didn’t have to face Dean, but the hunter had requested his help with cleaning up.  Which was incredibly weird seeing as Dean was a hunter and Derek had definitely let his wolf side go with him. 

The hunter looked terrible! The smell of blood reeked in the room, his wolf torn between being sad about the harm done and triumphant at how much Dean smelt like him, how much he was marked and belonged to him.  Another extremely confusing thing was the range of emotions Dean had been going through.  When Derek woke up he had been tense, smelling wary and on guard, but that had soon dissolved back into relaxation when Derek was recognized.  Upon seeing his injuries this calm hadn’t disappeared one bit.  From then to the shower it hadn’t once gone to anything reaching actual anger.  Derek didn’t understand, he knew that Dean had seen what he had done and it was always worse before being cleaned up. 

_‘Gripped me tight and raised me from perdition.’_ Unbidden the memory of what Dean had said about Castiel and torture came back.  The thought of Dean having had worse than that done to him was far more unwelcome, and his wolf snapped at the surface, furious at anyone who would so harm what was his.  Again, however the fuck Dean became his.

The sound of the shower turning off and cursing from the bathroom brought Derek back to his feet and moving before he was really aware of it, only noticing after he had knocked that he was naked and that the front of his thighs and chest were splotched with Deans blood.  The door opened before he could think of covering up or cleaning himself, and he flinched back slightly, still waiting for the untrusting hunter to realize he was a werewolf and kick him out, take back his offer of company.

“Dude, you look like my little brother when he’s done something wrong.  Go get the hydrogen peroxide from my bag and then come in here and have your own shower.  It’s really not as bad as it looks” Dean said, rolling his eyes.  Derek nodded, which seemed to be the only form of communication he was capable of at the moment.  He grabbed Dean’s bag and routed through it for a few moments, wrinkling his nose and pausing when he encountered wolfsbane, evidently some of the stuff Dean had burned to heal him before.  Frowning, he moved past that and grabbed what Dean had asked for, returning to the bathroom to give it to him. 

“Kicked puppy man.  And in your case you actually are a puppy, so it’s _really_ not right” Dean commented after glancing at Derek.

“I’m not a puppy” Derek retorted, scowling as Dean chuckled. 

“Of course you aren’t” He soothed, grabbing one of the motel room’s cloths and wetting it with the hydrogen peroxide before touching it to one of the scratches on his side.  Derek moved forwards automatically, taking Dean’s pain away in black lines and pleased when the hunter let out an inaudible—to human ears—sigh in relief.  He moved over to the shower and turned it on, pulling back at the temperature but forcing himself to get in and clean off. 

As he attempted to survive in the ice cold water, Derek surreptitiously watched Dean, taking in the marks he had made now that they were cleaned off.  Overall it really wasn’t as bad as it had seemed in the bed, but the punctures on Dean’s hips would definitely leave lasting scars, something the wolf was pleased about.  They’d probably be easy to cover up, but without a shirt or with low jeans they’d be very visible.  His wolf was _definitely_ pleased about that. 

“If you’re done freezing your ass off and pretending not to watch me, get out here and help me with my back.” Dean requested, turning to smirk at Derek. 

The werewolf glared at being caught even though he was quite pleased about getting out of the shower.  “If you hadn’t used all the hot water, maybe I wouldn’t be freezing my ass off.”

 “Ha, in a place like this? I was lucky enough to get one shower with _warm_ water.”  Dean retorted, passing over the bottle and the cloth before turning his back to Derek.

“Warm water is still better than water that only isn’t ice because it’s moving.” Derek muttered, further wetting the cloth and then smoothing it over the marks on the back of Dean’s neck that were almost bites.  He had moved down past the slowly oozing puncture wounds when he noticed how puffy and abused Dean’s hole was, recalling how he had barely gotten up to two fingers and only a squirt of lube before roughly fucking him.  Least he hadn’t gone in completely dry like his wolf had wanted to.

“Why aren’t you angry with me?” The question slipped out before he could stop it. 

“You could’ve killed me but you didn’t” Dean replied simply, stepping so that his legs were spread and Derek could get between them.  The permission was clear so Derek smoothed the cloth over the cut skin there as he contemplated Dean’s answer, only wavering slightly at the soft moan Dean made when Derek ran the cloth over his hole.  Derek smirked slightly at the noise, realizing that the hunter either hadn’t fully realized or hadn’t made the connection on how good Derek’s hearing was.  Maybe Dean wouldn’t kick him out and there wouldn’t be anything to worry about.

Dean’s answer really didn’t clear up anything though, so naturally the next question was, “Why did you let me?”

This seemed to make Dean pause too and he chuckled softly before answering. “I’ve no idea”

“That makes more sense” Derek replied sarcastically, finishing off with the cloth and setting it aside.  He could smell Dean’s arousal despite everything that happened and so continued smoothing over Dean’s back with his hands, cautious but hopeful.  When no protests came, Derek pushed lightly on Dean’s side to indicate he wanted the hunter to turn around, which he did with complete compliancy.  “You aren’t afraid of me”

“And yet you still are of me.”   Dean’s answer was certain and Derek knew he couldn’t even deny it.  Even after fucking this hunter, after being submitted to in all of his directions with the hunter underneath him, Derek still couldn’t shake the stories he had been told about the Winchesters.  Hearing and seeing one of the results of what Dean had been through and survived only heightened that wariness, plus how he had been with the demons.  It wasn’t even that Dean might kill Derek, just that the hunter existed.

“It seems that our roles reverse themselves.  I submit to you in sex and you follow me around afterwards.” Dean said softly, reaching out and running his hand over Derek’s jaw.  “Tell me Alpha, why _did_ I let you?”

Derek bit his lip at the address, leaning into Dean’s caress before answering.  “My wolf thinks you belong to me”

Dean nodded though that couldn’t have been what he expected to hear.  Then again, from the only small amount of surprise coming from him, it also couldn’t have been that far off. 

Stepping closer to Derek so that he could feel the hunter’s breath, Dean again turned his words back on him.  “And do I belong to you?”

Swallowing, Derek was caught between fleeing, throwing the hunter over the sink and fucking him again or just kissing him.  In the end he went with option three, closing the distance between them and catching Dean’s lips in a closed mouth kiss, sliding his eyes closed at the intimate contact as Dean moved his hands around to hold Derek’s neck.  Over the two days that they had been together they hadn’t actually taken so much time to explore, mapping out the planes of their mouths and drowning in scents, so this was awesome.

Derek pressed himself against Dean and ran his hands over the hunter’s body, careful this time and making sure not to aggravate any of the marks he had left behind.  They just stood there for a while, learning each other until the fact that they were both naked became quite apparent and Derek pulled back, smirking at Dean’s soft sound of loss and dropping to his knees in front of the hunter to nuzzle at his hard cock, enjoying the low moan the action received.  Dean twined his fingers into Derek’s hair, just leaving them there as Derek took the head of Dean’s cock into his mouth and sucked lightly.  With one hand he braced himself on Dean’s thigh so as to not cause more harm and with the other he reached back and lightly caressed Dean’s balls, humming pleasure at Dean’s groan.

Deciding not to draw it out, because they really did need to get away from this place, Derek sucked harder, taking Dean’s cock further into his mouth until it hit the back of his throat

“Derek” Dean breathed, tilting his head back and making small abortive thrusts into the werewolf’s mouth.  In response Derek moved his hand to the back of Dean’s thigh, indicating that the hunter didn’t have to hold back.  It was over relatively quickly after that, Dean spending himself into Derek’s mouth and then leaning back to the sink, petting through the werewolf’s hair while he reached down and jerked off in a mirror of what Dean had done just that the morning.

They just sat there for a few moments, panting and enjoying the quiet intimacy that they had stumbled upon almost by accident.  Then Dean spoke, breaking the silence.  “As much as I’d love to go back to sleep, we really need to go.”

Derek nodded, scraping his stubble over Dean’s thigh and sighing contentedly before dragging himself up.  He had never done anything like this before, but it felt so right, so completely normal, as if they’d be doing for years.  From Dean’s lack of anger over Derek’s markings, he probably felt the same way.  Feeling cheeky, Derek arranged his face to look neutral and asked, “I’ll drive shall I?”

The out of water fish impression that Dean made completed the whole morning.


	6. I know that starting over is not what life's about

“So where first?” Derek’s voice broke through Dean’s thoughts and the hunter glanced to the side, slightly shocked to find Derek sitting in the passenger seat of the impala and not Sam.  It was really weird how easily they had fallen into a routine that they had never done before.  Between the wincing and questions of course, but generally everything had been easy. 

“There was a hunter named Bobby who Sam and I used to go to for help hunting stuff, I thought that we could go over to his house and see if there were any books or stuff on Purgatory.”  Dean answered, grimacing.  It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go back there, it was just that he wasn’t looking forward to memories the place created.  It _was_ the ideal place to start searching for a way to get Cas back though, so it had to be done.

Dean glanced over to see if Derek had anything to say but the werewolf just nodded before turning back to look out the window.  Dean started the impala and winced slightly at the twinge the movement brought, huffing out a laugh and sitting back as he pulled out of the motel.  Reaching over and turning on the radio, Dean was pleased to find a station with Led Zeppelin playing. 

Deciding to lay down the rules right away, Dean stated, “One more thing.  Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cake hole.”

That earned a short laugh from Derek, “So if I incapacitate you and drive I can change the music?”

“You try that, I’ll shove wolfsbane up your ass.  There will never be anything wrong with my music that needs to be changed.” Dean warned, turning the sound up a little to cover Derek’s resulting chuckle.

“Alright, I won’t touch it.” Derek said, settling back into the chair.  He really was taking the loss of his car well, if Dean lost his baby and couldn’t get it back he’d probably dissolve into a puddle of goo or rage and wreck things.  Either or.

 

 The ride to Bobby’s house was nice with intermittent moments of awkwardness where Dean would be expecting to see Sam, but overall it went well.  Riding up through the scrap yard was the part that wasn’t fun, and Dean played the age old card of avoiding thinking of the old hunter who had used to live in the place.  Because Dean didn’t know what had happened with the old house, he drove around to the back, parking the impala so that it was relatively out of view and getting out to observe what time had done to the place. 

“I don’t know what’s happening here now, so just stay on guard.” He told Derek as he walked around to the back, popping the trunk open and pulling out various weapons.  “How are you with silver?”

“Fine to touch it, it’s just more irritating to get cut by” Derek replied, moving as if he would reach in and grab one of Dean’s silver knives, but then pausing until Dean nodded.  He picked it up, turning it and watching the light hit it.  “I shouldn’t need anything.  I can take care of myself without weapons.”

Dean laughed, “So very true.  However, from what you’ve told me you’ve never fought anything other than people and other werewolves, so you’re going to take at least one knife.”

Derek scowled at the knife but agreed, sticking it in his belt before turning back to look out over the scrap yard.  “How long has the hunter who lived here been gone?”

“A while before I went to purgatory.”  Dean replied after a bit.  In truth, he had no idea how long it had been.  There were a handful of numbered dates that stuck very soundly into his mind, but that hadn’t been one of them.  With Bobby coming back as a ghost and all it had confused the whole thing. 

Luckily, Derek seemed to get the message and turned to walk towards the front door, waiting for Dean before opening it and slipping inside.  Dean followed, keeping his gun out and steady.  It was still midday and they had light, so he hadn’t needed to take the extra time to bring a flashlight.  When testing the lamps, he was pleased to note that they still worked.   Of course, that along with the disturbed dust came with another problem.

“The electricity should’ve shut off by now.  I think someone’s either living or visiting here often.” He murmured.  Derek was on the other side of the room, but Dean could tell his werewolf ears had picked it up.  “I’m going to check upstairs, then I’ll show you the panic room.”

Going back down the hallway and up the stairs, Dean checked the rooms, noting that little had changed other than a faint layer of dust over everything.  It was fucking eerie.  Not the whole monsters are real type, but more that it was just so undisturbed.  Dean had lived so much of his life in this house, it had been one of the only places that he had been able to keep on coming back to.  As soon as Bobby died it’s like it became a shell.  Still filled with all the books and mementos but empty of the person who had given it life.

Realizing he had spent the past ten minutes stuck in a maudlin moment and Derek hadn’t come up to check why, Dean quickly and quietly moved back to the stairs.

“Don’t move!” A voice rang out from downstairs and Dean flinched, drawing up the gun before he realized that they was talking to Derek.  Reverberating growling rumbled through the house and then there were a few smashes and a gunshot.  Dean flew down the stairs and down the hallway to find Derek throwing a disarmed man up into the wall, eyes glowing red and claws and fangs out.

“Shit, Derek don’t, that’s Garth!” Dean exclaimed as soon as he recognized the man, and to his relief Derek released him, stepping back to put both hunters in his sight and not shifting back.  Quickly sweeping his eyes over the werewolf, Dean checked to make sure he hadn’t been shot before turning to Garth. 

“You’re working with a werewolf? An Alpha?” Garth huffed out after recognizing Dean and stopping his _completely_ subtle inching towards his gun. 

“What the hell are you doing here!” Dean asked without answering Garth’s question, too surprised at seeing the eccentric hunter. 

“Hey and weren’t you dead again?” Garth asked, showing that he hadn’t lost his legendary skills of bouncing subjects.  “You die a lot.  Where’s Sam?”

“Sam’s not here.  Why are you here?” Dean responded, narrowing his eyes.  He recognized the hat that Garth was wearing… “Is that Bobby’s hat?”  Apparently he also bounced subjects.

“Yup, I’ve taken over Bobby’s job.  Can you explain the werewolf?” Garth asked, looking at Derek, who had let now let his wolf retract, instead just standing there looking cagey.

“Garth, meet Derek, Derek, meet Garth.” Dean introduced shortly, deciding not to comment on Garth ‘taking over Bobby’s job’.  “And Derek’s a friend”

“Alright, well it’s good to see you Dean and hello Derek” Garth grinned, relaxing and tipping his hat to Derek before asking, “So what are you guys doing here?  Where’s Sam?”

“Sam has nothing to do with this.” Dean retorted and then bit his lip, wondering how much he should say.  Garth didn’t know Cas but he could help.  “We’re looking to get someone out of purgatory.”

“Purgatory?” Garth asked incredulously, “You know what I said about you dying?  Well I’m extending that to you also going to every single afterlife possible.”

Dean opened his mouth to argue, then realized that he actually had been to Heaven, Hell and Purgatory, but still, “How do you know about that?”

Garth just grinned in reply, tipping Bobby’s hat againbefore turning to look seriously at Derek.  “So Dean vouches for you and you’re not going to kill me?”

Dean rolled his eyes and opened his mouth, but Derek spoke first, his voice flat.  “Not until you give me reason to”

“Alright” Instantly Garth was back to his cheery usual self and he turned away to rummage through a pile of books.  Derek looked suitably confused and glanced over at Dean. 

The hunter grinned, taking pity on the baffled werewolf and slapping a hand on his shoulder.  “He grows on you.”

Garth didn’t pause in his search as he observed, “You’ve told that to everyone you’ve introduced me to”

“I’ve introduced you to two people” Dean retorted, belatedly moving his hand off Derek and scowling at the knowing look the werewolf shot him.

“Ah yes, drunk spirits.  Those were good times” Garth paused exaggeratedly in memory before finally pulling out a couple book and thumping them down on Bobby’s desk.  “I have to pick up a few things and then I’m off.  But there are a few books I remember that mention purgatory that I’ll get first.”

“Thanks Garth.” Dean replied

“Oh, you know what, actually,” Garth said suddenly, stopping in his continued search and turning around to look between Derek and Dean.  “There’s a hunt that needs to be done a couple towns from here.  I would get to it, but I’m meeting up with my special lady to go after a bunch of ghouls.  It’s relatively simple, just a small vamp nest, so if your purgatory thing ends up not being time sensitive, it’d be great if you could get that.”

Dean glanced over at Derek, but because the werewolf was looking wary about it he didn’t confirm anything.  From what Dean knew, Derek had only ever known hunters who were either actively hunting him or looking for reasons to do so.  Taking him on a hunt could be really good or really bad.  “We’ll let you know.”

“Great” Garth answered, pulling out a couple more books.  “This is all I have for the moment, so I’m going to go and grab my stuff from downstairs and in a while I’ll be back”

The last few words were done in a terminator voice that Dean rolled his eyes at, amused at Garth’s antics but not saying it.  As soon as he heard Garth on the stairs Derek spoke.  “Are you going to take the hunt?”

“You have a say in it, do you want to?” Dean countered, tilting his head in question. 

Derek just watched Dean for a second, examining his face in a way that reminded him strongly of the way him and Cas would just spend minutes reading each other.  Honestly? It kinda hurt to be reminded of the angel while it was so obvious that he wasn’t here. 

“Have they done anything that would require them to be hunted?” Derek asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Garth gave us this hunt, so yes, they’ve definitely done something.” Dean replied “Plus, if we actually do take it, we research and look around a lot to make sure we have the right creatures.  The only way we’ll hunt something is if it’s been killing people.”

Derek nodded.  “We’ll have to see with your purgatory thing then.”

Dean grinned mirthlessly in reply.  Yes, they would.  He really hoped that it wouldn’t be the same eclipse ritual that Cas had done to get and to get rid of the purgatory souls.  Then again, if a Winchester hoped something, it was generally the opposite that came true.  Ah well.

He walked over to the books Garth had pulled out and glanced down at them flicking through their titles. “I really hate researching, any chance that you like it?”

Derek’s snort told him the answer before the werewolf spoke. “We always had Stiles for research, he was much better at it.”

“Stiles? That’s his name?” Dean asked in surprise. 

The glare and hidden hurt he got in return spoke volumes.  “It’s a nickname.  He always said that even he couldn’t pronounce his actual first name.”

Deciding against prodding further, Dean nodded and let the subject drop, picking up a book and tossing it at Derek.  “Alright, I believe you.  Now put yourself to use.”

 

~*~

 

True to his word, Garth—the other hunter—left soon after.  Dean asked a few more questions about the vampire hunt but Derek stayed quiet for most of it, both unnerved and amused by the other hunter.  Derek had honestly never met a hunter who was so happy with life and able to get over things that would completely stall others.  Dean had said Derek was his friend, so Garth completely accepted it, allowing a werewolf into conversation without the slightest reservations.  It was incredible. 

After Garth had left though, they had had no further excuse to not research and so had buckled down, found a place to sit and started in on the books.  Overall, there were a lot of weird things about the place and random useless stuff.  Hours later and Derek had read about the endless forests where everything went feral and hunted everything else, the tales on it being a place for cleansing, for cutting things down to their barest level.  This would be the place where he would go when he died, Derek realized, staring at the pages which had pictures of shadowy creatures between the trunks of trees.

“What’s it like?” The question slipped out and Dean looked up, tilting his head

He looked like he was debating on how to answer, so Derek frowned in warning.  One side of Dean’s mouth quirked up without humor.  “In one word?  Pure”

That really hadn’t been the answer Derek had been expecting but Dean’s heartbeat stayed completely steady, showing that the hunter truly believed it.  Derek nodded slowly before returning to his book.  Pure.  That was, odd. 

Derek was almost going to suggest they go out for food when Dean let his head fall back and sighed, wincing a bit and then speaking.  “I’m hungry, and I haven’t shown you the panic room yet, so we’re going to take a break and do both”

There was that title again.  “What’s the panic room for?”

“Hiding” Dean answered easily. “It’s completely un-enterable to anything but humans right now, though we’ll have to change a bit on the angel proofing to get Cas in, and I guess for you too.  Bobby built it and Sam and I used it a lot when dealing with demons and all those fun denizens of hell”

Derek nodded, marking his page and shutting his book as he pretended that dealing with ‘denizens of hell’ was a usual occurrence.  He could see how it would be very useful though.  Dean got up and sauntered out of the living room, Derek following him down the hallway, stairs, and up to a metal barred door. 

“I don’t actually know if this thing is Alpha werewolf proof, I know it is for the other type of werewolf, but we’ll just have to see.”  Dean admitted as he opened the door with a scraping noise.  Luckily, Derek was able to get in, walking across the threshold and admiring all the different symbols and protectants that covered the room.  Other than those it was mostly bare, a few items of furniture and a bed giving it a sparse dungeon like look. 

“What’s with that?” Derek asked, nodding to the roof where a huge vent spanned the ceiling, designed into a fancy star like thing. 

“That’s a great big old devils trap.” Came the answer, and Derek looked down to find Dean rummaging through a box of things sitting on a shelf.  “Alright, if you still want that anti-possession tattoo, I think there’s some stuff around here that we can use.  I’ll have to clean it up and everything, but it should work.”

Derek chuckled in amusement, “You live on ‘should’s’ and ‘maybe’s’.”

Pausing, Dean glared at Derek over his shoulder.  “Ya, well, it’s worked for me so far.”

“Oh?  How many times have you died on them?” Derek asked, remembering Garth’s comment.

“Hmm” Dean narrowed his eyes, looking lost in thought.  “Just me or me, Cas and Sam?”

“Separated” It really was odd talking about this.  Peter had been the only person in Derek’s life to come back from the dead.

“I don’t even know, twice for me, not counting all the times Gabriel killed me in Mystery Spot, then Sam’s died three times, and Cas has died, what, three times also?  Like I said, I’ve got no idea” Dean answered, ending with a small triumphant noise as he found a tattooing gun in a box, picking it and its accessories up to dump them on the bed before turning to Derek.  “Where do you want it?” 

Biting his lip, Derek thought for a bit.  He already had his triskelion on his back, and he would need the anti-possession tattoo somewhere where it wouldn’t get cut up.  Dean had his on his chest, but for a werewolf who often got clawed there, it probably wasn’t the best place.  Arms wouldn’t do either, though maybe his hip could work.  In wolf form it was mostly protected by his hind legs, and it wasn’t the first place people went to for an attack.  Unless Dean grew claws and they changed up their routine, it should work.

“My hipbone” Derek decided out loud, the thoughtful look he got in return showing Dean’s approval.  Not that Derek needed Dean’s approval, but still,

“Alright, if I give you the keys to my baby and send you into town to get food while I set this up you won’t wreck anything right?” Dean asked seriously and Derek narrowed his eyes.  Really, by now Dean should know that Derek isn’t going to go around terrorizing the streets.

“I’m not feral” Derek replied with a scowl.

Dean looked confused for a few seconds before his eyes widened and he shook his head.  “Oh no, I wasn’t talking about that.  I was talking about my baby.  I know you had a nice car and took care of her, which is the only reason I’m letting you drive the impala now.  But if you mess her up at all, even the littlest scratch, I will make good on my premade werewolf threats.  I love her a whole hell of a lot more than I like you”

And really, all Derek could do in reply to that was laugh.  “No harm will come to your baby, I promise.”

“Good” Dean ended the conversation, rummaging in his pocket and throwing his keys at Derek, who caught them unerringly. “One thing you need to remember, get the pie.  Not cake, nor cupcakes, nor pastries, you _need_ to get the pie.” 

Derek chuckled and nodded, still smiling as he turned and left the panic room.  He did manage to not get lost in the house, though he fondly thought that the rest of his pack would have, had they been there.  Seriously, for a bunch of wolves and special humans, only a few of them actually had a directional sense even marginally better than that of a pineapple. 


	7. The moths beat themselves to death against the lights, adding their breeze to the summer nights.

To Dean’s surprise he had actually managed to find some ink that was unopened and so still useful.  Calculating the time it would take for Derek to get back, he waited ten minutes to mix it up, in the meantime cleaning all the different parts to the tattoo gun.  It had been packaged nicely and so stayed neat and clean, there was no rust, but he cleaned it with some alcohol he found to make sure.  For a little bit he debated about draining the rest of the drink, but then decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to tattoo someone while drunk.  Satisfied with this reasoning, he set out drawing up the anti-possession sigil. 

By the time everything was finished Dean could hear the impala coming back into the driveway and wasn’t able to resist the desire to make sure it was in one piece.  He hated letting Sam drive it but after spending so long in purgatory on his feet he was a little more inclined to give it up.  Not that he had to be a good sport about it, he thought as he walked out the door.

“She survived!” Dean exclaimed upon seeing his baby, watching Derek get out of it with a long suffering huff.  He grinned hopefully at the plastic bag the werewolf brought out.  “Pie?”

“Remember when you called me a puppy?” Derek asked, one eyebrow rising.  “I’m pretty sure I could command you to do tricks and reward you with pie, and you’d do them.”

“Well, we aren’t going to find out” Dean replied, snatching the bag from Derek’s hand and letting out a happy noise when he spotted the pie.  “Dude, you continue remembering the pie and I’m going to keep you forever.”

“I’ll be sure to note that” Derek rolled his eyes as Dean took the pie out, handing the rest of the bag back to the werewolf.  “Seriously? It’s just pie”

“This is not just pie.  This is what heaven should be made of.”  Dean hissed, offended.  “This is going to be the first pie I haven’t pity eaten since I left purgatory.  That’s a fucking year man.  I need my pie”

“Pity eating a thing of yours?” Derek inquired, moving past Dean to the house. 

Dean snorted, no way he was answering that.  He might be aware of his failings, but he could deny them all he wanted.  “The stuff’s on the desk, I’m going to eat pie first though, then we can make you all nice and not demon possessed.”

“Sounds fun” Came the dry answer from inside.  Dean quickly moved to catch up, pulling the pie from its box and dipping his fingers into the crust to scoop some cherry filling out.  Holy crap, it was still warm. 

“How the heck is this still warm?” He asked through the first mouthful of pie, the words coming out jumbled with his groans of pleasure.  “It’s freaking awesome.”

When no reply came, he looked up to see Derek caught in an odd combination of disgust, amusement and a darkening of his eyes that could only be lust.  “I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be the animal here.  Because it seems like you’ve forgotten, I’ll remind you that there are these things called ‘forks’.  I’m sure you heard of them.”

“Fuck off” Dean mumbled, now chewing on some pie crusts, closing his eyes at the wonderfully flaky flavor.  “This is beautiful.”

A snort was all he got in reply, and then silence mostly reigned as Derek pulled out his food—a reasonable burger—and they ate.  Mostly reigned of course, because Dean couldn’t stop verbalizing his happiness at eating pie, something he only noticed when finished and sucking on his fingers to get the last bits of filling. 

“Seriously? You devoured that thing.” Derek’s voice was much closer than before and Dean opened his eyes, surprised to find the werewolf standing in front of him, eyes fixed on Dean’s fingers still inside his mouth.  Realizing what he was doing, Dean let his eyes close slightly and sucked hard, hollowing his cheeks and purposefully moaning.  The lust grew darker in Derek’s eyes and then the werewolf was right in front of him and curling his hand around the back of Dean’s head.  Derek pressed Dean down and he pulled his now clean fingers free, going to his knees in front of the werewolf.  Once down, he reached out and rested his hands on the werewolf’s thighs, still looking up at him.  Fuck did he want Derek’s cock in his mouth, and right now would be about perfect.  

With some more pressure Dean nuzzled forward, rubbing his face over the bulge in the werewolf’s jeans and opening his mouth to gently tug the button undone.  The groan that that action got Dean spurred him on and he pulled down the zipper as well, coming face to face with a growing wet patch on the front of Derek’s boxers.  Using his hands Dean gathered up the materials underneath where they had been resting, pulling them both down to expose Derek’s hard cock.  Grinning and meeting Derek’s gaze, he licked a long stripe up the front of it. 

The werewolf growled and Dean could feel and see his wolf coming out, Derek’s eyes turning red as he reached down to grab his cock while tightening his grip on Dean’s head.  Not needing any direction Dean let his mouth fall open, watching Derek as the werewolf guided his cock between Dean’s lips.  As soon as the head was fully in Dean started sucking, tonguing the slit and moaning as his mouth was slowly filled.  As Derek pushed further, Dean began to try and relax his gag reflex, loving the weight pressing its way into his mouth.  Sucking harder, Dean let his head be pressed forwards until his nose was up against the curly hairs surrounding the cock now fully seated in Dean’s mouth.  The hunter swallowed, his throat pressing in on Derek’s cock and causing the werewolf to inhale sharply. 

“Relax, and keep your hands where they are.” Derek ordered, tightening his grip on Dean’s hair where it had slackened.  Dean obeyed instantly, still running his tongue over Derek’s cock as he waited to be used. Not making Dean wait the werewolf started fucking his mouth, sliding almost all the way out before slamming back in, setting up a fast rhythm. 

It wasn’t exactly a common thing for him to do,—or something that Dean ever did—but he managed to take it, his hands curling around Derek’s thighs and his eyes watering.  He really wanted to touch himself or pull off to breathe.  It’d be so easy to reach down and pull off to the same rhythm Derek was fucking his mouth at, but the Alpha had told him not to use his hands.  When it started to feel like his cock was going to explode Dean sucked hard, hoping to make the werewolf come sooner.  Showing that Dean hadn’t lost all his cock sucking abilities, Derek pressed harshly into Dean’s mouth one last time, holding Dean’s head still as he spilled down the hunters willing throat, Dean greedily swallowing down the salty liquid. 

Dean was almost choking at the end when Derek pulled out and he coughed, spraying some of Derek’s come onto the werewolf’s leg.  Whining at the loss, Dean moved forwards, resisting the urge to cough more and licking up the come he had unintentionally spat out.  When he had gotten all of it and cleaned Derek off he just kneeled there, resting his head on Derek’s thigh and still not reaching down to finish himself off even though resisting felt like torture at how hard he was.  The Alpha still hadn’t told him he could move.

“Mine” Derek asserted, his commanding tone at odds with the way he ran his hand soothingly through Dean’s hair, lightly tugging one last time to get Dean to stand up. 

“Yours” The hunter agreed, pressing against Derek but holding himself back from demanding anything more than the Alpha wanted to give him.

Rewarded for his easy agreement, Derek opened up the hunter’s jeans, sliding his hand in to grab Dean’s neglected cock.  He only jacked him three times before Dean was coming, moaning and biting down on Derek’s neck as the werewolf moved his hand to catch all of Dean’s release.  His legs turning to jelly in the afterglow, Dean was grateful when Derek lowered them both onto the floor, though not so much when he pressed his soiled hand to Dean’s lips.

Dean grimaced at it, shaking his head into Derek’s neck.  He would gladly take Derek’s come, but it was just gross to be cleaning up his own, especially the entirety of Dean’s orgasm that Derek had collected.  Despite the hunters misgivings, Derek persisted, his eyes flashing red as he growled, “You’ve agreed, you’re _mine_.  You don’t have a choice in this.”

Feeling chastised, Dean responded immediately by opening his mouth again, licking and sucking his own come off of Derek’s fingers and hand.  Dean’s Alpha let out a pleased noise once they were clean and gently tilted Dean’s head up to kiss him.  A small smile crossed the hunter’s face and he reveled in just being able to sit and relax on Derek.  It was seriously fucking wonderful.

As the glow wore off, Dean realized that there was something bugging him.  Last time he had asked Derek why Dean let him do so much with the hunter, he had said that his wolf thought Dean belonged to him.  Dean had been thoroughly and possibly unintentionally been distracted by an awesome blowjob, but now was wondering again.  After all hadn’t he just done the exact same thing?  Allowing Derek to fuck his mouth, feed him his own come, claim ownership of him, things that Dean Winchester just didn’t allow.  Along with what happened before, scratching, leaving scars that would be permanent, begging. 

“Derek” He mumbled, getting a soft hum of acknowledgment in response.  “What did you mean by your wolf thinks I belong to it?  And why does that affect me, why am I letting you do all this?”

Derek’s hand stopped in its repetitive smoothing over Dean’s head and the hunter let out a displeased sound, pushing his head into Derek’s hand until he resumed.  When he answered his words were careful. “My wolf thinks you’re part of my pack and you’re responding to it, which means that you’ve agreed.  Because I’m the Alpha you’ll automatically want to respond to my desires.”

Dean bit his lip, thinking over this new information.  “It’s not going to cross over to everything is it? Like, will I always want to do what you tell me to?”

“Not always.  Just when I act like your Alpha” Came the reply after a long pause.  Derek had tensed exponentially at the question and Dean frowned.

“Stop acting that I’m going to stab you at any moment, I’m thinking.” He said, attempting to prod Derek in the chest.

And Dean really did need to think about it.  This fell in the outsider influence thing.  Emotion and action influencing mojo.  With Cas this stuff would be okay.  Sure Dean acted upset when the angel didn’t tell him what he was doing or when he was going to randomly fly them across the world, but he was still okay with it.  The difference was that he didn’t really know Derek, the werewolf was a creature that Dean would usually hunt, yet he felt completely secure with.  Completely fine with belonging to the werewolf and following his orders.  It practically screamed ‘not good’.  Air quotes and all.

“When would it have started?” He asked, thinking back.  If he could compare what he thought about Derek without the mojo, that’d be useful.  Then of course, he’d be counting on Derek telling the truth.

Derek’s hand shifted down and ran over the marks his claws had left in Dean’s hips, “Probably around when we slept together for the second time.  It could’ve started when we killed those demons though.”

Dean let out a soft hum of acknowledgment, wondering what the fuck he did next.  If Derek was telling the truth then Dean’s choice to keep him alive might not have been his own.

Before he could make it any further down that trail of thought, Derek spoke again.  “The pack connection only works if both of us agree to it.  Even if I considered you mine but you didn’t, you wouldn’t feel any inclination to submit to me.”

Well, that certainly made Dean feel better.  Again though, he had to remind himself, only if Derek wasn’t lying about it.  But what could be in it for him? It wasn’t like Dean had anything going for him.  He knew he was a fantastic hunter, not even trying to brag.  But he was also alone, completely alone.  He had no one with him, and all he was trying to do was get someone out of purgatory.  Then again, that could be Derek’s end game.  Derek might be trying to get someone out of purgatory.  Which would mean that whatever connection they found, Dean would have to make sure it was only for an angel, something that didn’t belong in the monster afterlife. 

Admittedly, there were tons of pluses to being with Derek, the fantastic sex, the feeling of comfort, the security and the belonging.  And honestly, he loved that.  Craved it and absolutely loved feeling like he was needed instead of thrown out and forgotten.  So he could stay with the werewolf until this was all over.  If Derek did a Ruby at the end, Dean would just have to make sure he was prepared to kill the guy. 

“Can I still kill you? Even though you’re my Alpha?” Dean asked, following that thought

In response Derek stiffened even more, pulling back until he almost wasn’t touching Dean at all.  “Yes”

Okay, so that was good.  If need came down to it, Dean would just have to kill Derek. 

Ignoring the sick feeling that came with the idea of killing his werewolf, Dean closed the space that Derek had opened up, resting his head again on the werewolf’s chest.   Speaking softly, he allowed himself one moment of weakness.  “Please don’t give me a reason to”

Derek huffed out an almost revealed sigh in response, slinging one arm over Dean’s back and just laying there.  It really was quite comfy and Dean would love to actually doze, but thoughts and things that needed to be done were crowding him out of that relaxation.

“I should really do that tattoo now.” Dean murmured lazily, getting a grunt in reply.  He pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked around, bursting into laughter over what they had just done.  Oh if Bobby could see Dean now, he’d probably just up and shoot him after giving him a shower of holy water. 

“What’s funny?” Derek grumbled and Dean turned to look at him, even further amused at the fact that neither one of them had actually made it to removing their clothes.

“This whole situation.  If you knew Bobby you’d think it was funny too.  If he knew what we just did, he’d probably shoot us, call us idjits and then insist that we clean up and burn the rug for good measure.” Dean managed, attempting to quiet his laughter.  “Oh fuck, I haven’t laughed this much since I took Cas to that brothel.”

“You took Cas, the angel, to a brothel?” Derek asked incredulously, rolling over to face Dean, the seriousness of the past moment broken

“We were going after Raphael and he fully expected to be dead in the morning, seeing as Raphael had already smote him once, and for some reason I thought it was a great idea.  Get the angel laid, so why not just take him to a ‘den of iniquity’.”  Dean reminisced, still chuckling at the memory.  “He talked to the prostitute about her daddy problems and we got kicked out.  Funniest fucking thing I had done in a long time, what with the apocalypse going on and all.”

“And this qualifies as that funny?” Derek asked, the confused tone still not gone.  “How is this even funny?”

Finally getting himself under control, Dean just grinned, reaching out and patting Derek’s chest.  “Like most things around you, I’ve no idea, but it definitely is.  More nice than funny anyways.  The brothel incident was funny, this is nice.”

With that declaration, Dean decided to get up, rolling away and pushing himself to his knees to rummage on the desk after zipping himself back up, resting a hand on the tattoo gun as he questioned, “You good with me just doing this here?”

“Alright” Derek answered, also propping himself up and watching Dean.  The hunter hummed his agreement and pulled the stuff down, setting it out so that it was nice and organized and taking the time to grab the ink and some warm water from the kitchen.

 Pressing Derek back down into the ground, he straddled the werewolf and asked, “Which side?”

“Right.  And there better not be wolfsbane or something in the ink” Derek answered, shifting a bit until he was in a comfortable position. 

Snorting, Dean covered Derek’s hip with water and then placed the paper over top of it.  He really wasn’t a professional in inking tattoos, but he could get the basic steps with the basic equipment he had found.  “I promise that there is nothing untoward or poisonous in the ink. Adding on what I said before, I am quite pleased with you how you are and am not going to plan out any disturbing and ultimately fallible ways to kill you.”

Derek let out a soft chuckle as if he wasn’t sure whether that was funny, and Dean echoed it more naturally as he continued preparing.  Setting up the gun, he filled the ink caps and glanced to the side, making sure he had enough water.  It wasn’t distilled but Derek was a werewolf and therefore immune to infections.  How that worked with keeping a tattoo Dean had no idea, but Derek already had the triskelion and it looked perfect.

 Removing the paper, Dean wiped a small amount of alcohol over the design and turned on the tattoo gun.  The outline of the design went on easy and in silence, Derek barely making any indications of pain, though that was generally expected with the life he lived.  Filling it in took a little bit longer, but before long the anti-possession sigil had taken shape and was fully completed.  Leaning back to admire it, Dean pressed his thumb in circles over Derek’s other hip, watching the tattoo as the redness around it faded, making it look like it had been there for ages. 

“That’s useful” Dean murmured, “If you get cut through it, will the ink grow back?”

“Yes” Derek confirmed, sitting up and forcing Dean to relocate on his lap in order to not fall off.  The werewolf cupped Dean’s face in his hands and the hunter stilled, carefully watching Derek.  This seemed to be getting into serious territory again.  “Just as much as I’m your Alpha, you’re my pack.  You have as many people as I do right now, so you have to understand why I can’t lose you too, and will never give you a reason to kill me.”

Smiling, Dean leaned forward and kissed Derek, not as a prelude to anything, but just a confirmation, a mutual decision for trust.  Pulling back he let his smile turn into a smirk and announced, “Now that we’re finished with that lovely chick flick moment in which we decided not to kill each other, we should get working.”

Derek laughed in response and pushed Dean fully off his lap so he could stand and pull his jeans back up.  Grumbling, Dean got up as well only to flop back down on the couch and pull up the book he had been looking at beforehand.  Fucking research.


	8. While we’re on the subject can we change the subject now?

After sitting down next to Dean and pretending not to notice how the hunter pressed into him, Derek flipped open another book on purgatory so he could think without distraction.  He had been almost positive for a bit there that Dean would either kick him out or try and kill him and probably succeed too.  Derek knew what hunters were like about outside influences, the amount of interest his wolf was taking in Dean was definitely leaving such a thing.  It really wasn’t even purposeful either, Dean just felt like home.  He felt like mate, security and possession.  When Derek had noticed him sucking the pie filling off his fingers, his wolf had just _responded_ , not caring one bit for acceptability.  The natural thing to do was to prove that Dean was his, both forcing Dean to just take it and howling with glee as he didn’t even need to. 

All of Derek’s life, he had never managed to belong to or keep a pack and stay with it.  Almost his whole family was burned to death, Laura was killed, and the new pack he had made left him to move on to better things.  With Dean his wolf was working overtime, attempting to put Dean in a position where the hunter relied on him and so wouldn’t leave him.  Pushing him into doing things he didn’t want to, dominating him, leaving lasting reminders, it was all his wolf trying to prove to Dean that the hunter needed him.  The fact that Dean was responding just doubled his wolf’s attentions, creating a repeated cycle in which Derek just wanted to completely own Dean, force him until he had no choice but to stay with Derek because he simply couldn’t do anything else.  And it wasn’t only his wolf that felt that way about Dean, Derek wanted to own the hunter.  Wanted Dean completely under his control, still with a will of his own, but following Derek’s orders if he gave them.

When the hunter had asked Derek about it, it had felt like a punch in the gut.  Wouldn’t that have been a great ending, killed by the person he was trying to claim.  But Dean _had_ accepted Derek, had even admitted that he didn’t want to kill Derek.  He had no idea why the hunter had done so but was absolutely fucking grateful for it.  Maybe, just maybe he had found someone who would stay with him, who would be there and not leave him for at least a little bit longer.  It was pathetic really, how much an Alpha needed a hunter, but as Dean shifted a bit and pressed his leg against Derek’s, the werewolf couldn’t pretend it felt anything but natural.

“You okay?” Dean asked, evidently noticing that Derek hadn’t turned a single page since he picked up his book. 

Glancing up and playing innocent, Derek nodded, smiling slightly before actually starting to read.  He knew this couldn’t last long, but it didn’t feel dangerous, new and rebellious as it had with Kate.  This time it was both him and his wolf that wanted the hunter, and the hunter that actually wanted him back.

 

 

“Son of a bitch, hey Derek, look at this” Dean exclaimed suddenly after two hours of relative silence, the slight change in his scent beforehand the only reason Derek didn’t jump.  Derek’s book was unceremonially shoved aside as Dean dropped his open on Derek’s lap, pointing to the right page on which there was an old picture of a human in the middle of a group of formless beasts.  The title was worn out, but Derek got the message, odd one out.  Looking over at the writing with the picture, Derek quickly skimmed through it.  It was a ritual that could be used to pull someone who didn’t belong in a certain afterlife somewhere else. 

The ritual would create a talisman of some sort with four items.  An item from each afterlife, an anchor to the creature they were trying to free, a long incantation, some crazy marks and then blood spilling that caused the items to come together into forming the talisman.  The talisman would then be pressed against the anchor and seal itself to whatever creature was thought about and anchored to. The talisman was used to open a corridor into the place where the creature was, in this case purgatory.  It was only one use though, one door into purgatory and one door out, and only those who had gone in through the corridor and the creature the talisman was sealed to be would be able to get out. 

“So basically this is how to get a soul that doesn’t belong somewhere out of there and back to where it belongs.”  Derek summed it up, frowning down at the picture. 

“Exactly, except in Cas’ case it’ll be grace of course.”  Dean said excitedly and Derek had to suppress the instant flash of jealousy.  Dean belonged to him, the hunter shouldn’t be so owned by the angel.  “For the anchor we can use his handprint, cause he’s technically still alive and can come back here instead of a different afterlife.  I imagine there aren’t a lot of people who end up in the wrong place, so that’s why there’s so little detail.”

Derek nodded, pushing the jealousy out of his mind and accepting that that was a good point.  When raising someone from the dead, it was generally accepted that there hadn’t been a screw up in their whole dying thing.  Though if Cas wasn’t dead, “How did you guys get stuck in purgatory anyways?”

“Oh, killing the head leviathan dude.  Stabbed him through the neck and he sent out a weird shockwave that brought us there too.  Fun times.” Dean said offhandedly, now rereading the ritual over Derek’s shoulder.  “Let’s see, we need something from hell, heaven, purgatory and void.  Void?  What the hell is that?”

Shrugging, Derek suggested, “If angels don’t belong in purgatory, they live in heaven and definitely don’t go to hell when they die, where do they go?”

“Void” Dean answered, coming to the same conclusion.  He tilted his head and looked back up at Derek.  “Well fancy that, everyone’s better at this research thing than I am”

Barking out a laugh Derek shook his head.  “I’m only any good of it because of Stiles.  The kid talked a mile a minute whenever he was finding something out for the pack, apparently I picked up something about how to make huge leaps in connecting things.”

“Stiles was part of your pack?” Dean asked curiously, and Derek grimaced.  He really didn’t want to discuss Stiles with Dean.  The hunter probably wouldn’t even get as jealous over Stiles and Derek’s previous relationship as the werewolf was of the one between Dean and Cas.  Not that he knew there was a relationship going on there, just all signs seemed to point towards it. 

“Yes.” Derek answered flatly, moving on, “How are we going to get the items we need, I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly able to go to heaven or hell and just pick something up.”  Derek paused and narrowed his eyes, remembering something suddenly.  “Unless you can actually do that.  You have died a lot after all.”

“You make me sound like a zombie or something.”  Dean replied, offended “I am not a zombie.”

“Of course you aren’t” Derek soothed in a patronizing tone and Dean scowled before giving up the fight with a huff

“I’ve no idea what we can use, I did only find it now.” He replied to Derek’s original question.  “I mean, I brought back a blade from purgatory, but with the rest I’ve got no idea.  Do you think we can use animals? We could attempt to catch a hellhound, though I’m not making a deal for it.  I never want to see another one of those ever again.”

Noting the shudder and fearful tinge that colored Dean’s words, Derek didn’t ask.  “Alright, and do you think we could find another angel who might be able to get us something from heaven?  We could ask them to do it for Cas?”

Dean laughed, an almost strained sound.  “Considering what Cas did before we got sucked into purgatory, I really don’t think any of them are going to help us.  It doesn’t matter that he was insane at the time, angels aren’t exactly the forgiving type.”

Wanting to ask more, Derek opened his mouth, but Dean cut across him with a glare.  “No.  I didn’t ask about Stiles cause you didn’t want to talk, and I really don’t want to talk about this.”

Conceding to the point, Derek nodded, “Alright, so we’ve got one thing from purgatory, we possibly know what one thing is from hell, leaving heaven and void.  If we’re right and they’re connected, we might be able to get something from both at the same time.”

“Yup.” Dean agreed unnecessarily.  “Well, this is going to be fun”

Derek froze, turning to Dean.  Oh shit, “Will this require more research?  Like, sitting here and reading books?”

Instantly Dean’s scent changed to one of aversion, “Oh fuck no, I’m not spending another day in here.”

“Good” Derek replied, relieved.  It really was quite cooped up in here, the smell of age and dust making his wolf restless, though he was quite glad it wasn’t nearing the full moon yet. 

“We will have to sleep here though” Dean shattered Derek’s hopes of going back outside and the werewolf winced.  “Just for tonight, and then we can go”

 

 

Just to be clear, waking up in the middle of the night after a really satisfying evening to a hunter shaking him and hissing his name in an excited tone never used to happen to Derek.  If he was ever woken by hunters, it would be to them trying to kill him.  If he was ever woken by someone speaking in an excited tone, it would’ve been Stiles, and he usually knew better than to wake the werewolf, instead leaving his grand epiphanies for morning.  Dean apparently, had not gotten this message. 

“Derek! We totally have angel blades in the impala! And for the whole void thing we can just summon Death!”  Dean hissed.  Derek rolled over, cringing back at how cold Dean’s hands were. 

“Did you go outside?” He asked hazily, blinking as he woke up.  “How didn’t I notice that?”

“I don’t know, but look, this is perfect” Dean exclaimed, slapping two weapons down on the floor next to Derek.  “An angel blade from heaven, and then I brought up the blade from purgatory.”

Freezing, Derek stared at the weapons.  Both of them had wicked blades and would’ve been easy to kill him with.  They were still cold from spending all night out in the impala, which meant that Dean had just gone out to get them.  What the fuck.

“Dude, you look like you’re freaking out here” Dean observed, sounding concerned and reaching out to touch the side of Derek’s face.  “This _is_ a good thing”

Flicking his eyes up to look at the hunter, Derek shakily stated “I didn’t wake up”

“You’re awake now.  I fail to see why that requires the kicked puppy look though.”  Dean pried

Derek just stared helplessly up at him.  Dean had gotten out of the makeshift bed that they shared, gone out to impala, rummaged through the weapons, brought two back in and right up to the werewolf, and Derek had slept through the whole thing.  Back in Beacon Hills he wasn’t even able to sleep through a pack member entering the house downstairs. 

“Oh right, cause the whole werewolf thing” Dean realized out loud, tilting his head at Derek and smirking “Well at least I’m not the only one who’s getting fucked up in this arrangement.”

Derek snorted inaudibly, as much as he’d like to get upset over it, it was the truth.  He turned Dean into a toy for his amusement and Dean got to sneak knives around him.  Looking back down at the blades, he shook his head and relaxed back down.  “That’s nice Dean, now don’t tell me at whatever fucking hour this is in the morning.”

“Well I woke up, so I decided that you get to enjoy the night too.”  Dean retorted cheekily. 

“This is the second time you’ve used that excuse, and unless you’re going to suck my dick again, I’m going back to sleep” Derek scowled at him, not particularly feeling up for more sex.  Yes, werewolf’s had an awesome refractory period, but before they had gone to sleep Derek had fucked Dean again and was far too tired.

Dean picked up the blades and raised his hands, laughing. “Alright, alright, I’ll put these away and bother you with my awesome intelligence tomorrow.  Go back to sleep”

“Fucking right I will.” Derek muttered, already feeling himself dropping off to sleep.  Distantly he heard Dean say something, but by then he was already gone.

 

The next time Derek woke up, he did so in a way nicer way, with the sun shining through the window and the sounds of the impala pulling into the yard.  Keeping his eyes closed, he debated about sleeping for longer, but then decided that he should actually get up.  Who knew what other crazy ideas Dean had gotten while Derek slept.

Sitting up, he let the blankets fall away as he looked around for some clothes, wondering if Dean had actually gone out naked or put something on beforehand, he hadn’t noticed during the night.  Considering that Dean was a hunter, it was probably the latter.  Not that there would be anyone out there to see anything, it just made Derek feel better if he was the only one to see Dean naked.  Finding some pants and a shirt he let out a soft growl of triumph.  Since Dean’s shirt got lost somewhere in the kitchen the hunter had wanted to use Derek’s to clean up after they had sex.  Derek had insisted that Dean lick up the come instead and was now reaping the rewards in the form of a perfectly reusable shirt.  Take that society and people who frowned upon Derek’s weird kinks.  They didn’t get to reuse clothes and he did. 

By the time he had finished changing Dean was already coming back into the house, swinging a plastic bag and singing Ramble On under his breath. 

Looking up he caught sight of Derek and grinned.  “Awesome, you’re awake!  Now, breakfast and plans.”

Derek caught the wrapped sandwich that Dean threw at him, pulling open the wrapping and hungrily biting into it as Dean started to talk.

“Alright, so.  We’ve got the things from purgatory and heaven and we know what we’re getting from hell.  For the hellhound we can just find someone who’s made a deal and then find out when their deal is over.  Now for void, I was thinking, why don’t we just ask Death about that?  I mean, we could summon him, give him some fries, a burger, and ask him how to get into void.  He’ll threaten us, call us insignificant, be generally terrifying and then may or may not tell us anything.” Dean said, trailing off at the end before shrugging.  “Granted, it’s not the best idea, but we could get something from him.  Maybe make a deal that doesn’t involve wearing his ring for a day or either of our souls.”

“From the cavalier way you’re talking about doing something that should be impossible I take it you’ve summoned Death before?” Derek asked incredulously, torn between eating more of his sandwich and not wanting to lest Dean casually say something else that might make Derek choke. 

“Yes, that’s how we got Lucifer locked up and all, really long story.  We had to get all four horsemen’s rings, and Death was the only one we didn’t kill.  The dude is terrifying” And Derek’s decision not to eat any more of his sandwich was confirmed as a good one.

“Right, I forgot, you go around killing horsemen in your spare time” Derek snarked and Dean laughed, grinning

“You’ve no idea man.  No idea.” Dean said, shaking his head.  “Although last time we summoned Death we also bound him, and I really don’t want to do that again, so we should try and see if there is another way we can summon him without the binding.”

“Why did you summon him?” Derek asked curiously, and instantly Dean’s face shut down. 

Glaring at Derek, Dean spoke in a very cold tone.  “I have done a lot of things that I regret in my life, and while most of them still ended up working out, that is one thing that I _really_ regret.  Don’t ask me about it.  It doesn’t matter”

Derek raised his eyebrows in surprise but nodded, changing the subject by asking if Dean had any ideas on how they could do it and filing the information away for later.  While it could make sense for Dean to regret _binding_ Death, it sounded more like Dean regretted the reasons for why he summoned Death.  Dean talked a little bit more, detailing things while Derek was unnoticeably distracted.  It sounded like it took a lot to summon Death, so why in all that time hadn’t Dean changed his mind?  It shouldn’t be important, but if Death had some kind of vendetta due to it or something, Derek really wanted to know.

“…and actually I was thinking of calling Sam.” Derek tuned back into the conversation in time to hear, and he froze, raising an eyebrow

“You want to call your brother?  Why?” Derek asked skeptically

“Technically I was the one who talked with Death most of the time, but Sam’s a lot better at finding summoning spells and the like.”  Dean replied, shrugging and avoiding looking at Derek.  “Even if he isn’t into hunting anymore, he might have read something.  I can just tell him I,” Dean trailed off at the end, cocking his head to the side in thought.  “I could tell him I’m helping a friend out and I need to ask Death a question.”

The look on Dean’s face told Derek that the hunter really didn’t like that answer, and so he suggested, “You could also guilt trip him into helping you ‘cause he left?”

For a second the werewolf thought that Dean would get angry, but then he paused, biting his lip and thinking.  “Ya, I could try that.  I would ask you to go outside, but you’d probably still be able to hear me right?”

Derek nodded in confirmation and Dean laughed shortly.  “Alright, so then can you just go into the kitchen and pretend you aren’t listening?”

“Alright” Derek agreed, standing up and walking over to Dean.  The hunter looked confused, but Derek reached out and curled his hand around Dean’s neck, crowding in close and pressing a quick kiss to his forehead.  “It’ll be okay”

Dean’s scent instantly changed to grateful and the hunter’s mouth quirked up in a smile.  Returning it, Derek grabbed the bag Dean had brought with the sandwiches and moved into the other room, still listening to Dean in case his brother was an asshole.  Derek knew all about abandonment issues, nothing was worse than having to talk to the person who had willingly left you.

From the other room he heard Dean take out his phone and flip it open, taking a deep breath before pressing a few buttons.  On the other end a male voice answered

“Dean?  Is everything okay?” Instantly Dean’s heartbeat sped up, sadness cloaking his scent.

“Hey Sam, and ya, don’t worry.  Everything’s fine. Though, I kinda need to ask you for a favor”

“You need to ask me for a favor.”  The voice on the other end sounded flat, approaching the edge of confused, but also hurried, like the person was in a rush. “Listen Dean, if it’s about hunting, I can’t leave right now, alright? I’m actually busy at the moment, though if you called back later maybe?  If it’s not time sensitive”

“Oh, okay.  No problem, I’ll call later” Derek let out a small growl at the hurt in Deans scent, perfectly hidden from his tone as if he’d been expecting it.

“Alright, great.  Talk to you later” 

Even before Sam had finished hanging up Derek was back in the other room, standing there awkwardly.  His wolf and everything inside him wanted to reach out to his upset pack member, but before he could do anything more than meet Dean’s eyes, the room was filled with the smell of sulfur. 

“Well, well, well, what do we have here” A Scottish drawl spoke from the corner and Derek’s eyes instantly flashed red as he spun around, recognizing the smell of demon.  The demon that had appeared swirled a glass of alcohol, perhaps scotch, his eyes flicking between Dean and Derek, the latter who had stepped slightly in front of the former.  “The short Winchester’s all alone so he got himself a new friend”

“Fuck off Crowley” Dean hissed, and Derek felt marginally better that Dean knew the demon.  That _could_ be a good thing, right?  If Dean had left the demon alive and all .“What the hell are you doing here?”

 “A little birdy told me that someone wanted to know how to contact Death.”  Dean looked murderous and Crowley rolled his eyes “Okay fine, no, there aren’t any little birdy’s around here, but I heard that you got out of monster heaven and decided to see for myself.  Imagine my surprise when not only are you sans angel and moose, you’ve picked up fangs here.  And by the smell of it, he owns your lovely little meat-suit” 

Evidently deciding to ignore all other comments Dean asked, “And do you know how to contact Death?  Not the same way as last time”

Crowley laughed and turned to Derek.  He had a bad feeling he wouldn’t like whatever the demon was about to say.  “You know, I couldn’t help but notice that Dean didn’t want to tell you what happened the last time he summoned Death.  Did it to ask the old guy to kill his feathery bed warmer.  You can never be safe around a hunter when you’re not human.”

Instantly making the connection between feathers and angel and slightly jealous over the bed warmer comment, Derek glanced over at Dean, finding the hunter looking at Crowley like he wanted to strangle him.  He was definitely messed up to be worrying over the wrong things, Dean had asked Death to kill Castiel?  He had said he regretted it, but still, that was fucked up. 

Deciding to put that on the backburner, Derek turned back to Crowely, schooling his expression blank.  “If you aren’t here to help, feel free to leave”

Crowley laughed as if he was said something funny, draining his glass and putting it down.  “Well, actually now, I’m slightly curious as to why you two want to summon Death.  You haven’t gotten any more feathery friends you need to fry do you?”

“Unless you know the angel of death” Derek quipped.  The reaction he got for the little joke was completely surprising. 

Crowley paled, his eyes zeroing back in on Dean.  “Now that’s a whole new level of stupid even for you Winchester.  Unless you’re actually that keen on utter oblivion, I’d suggest that you wait until hell lovingly welcomes you back home to die.”

Exchanging a glance with Dean, Derek raised his eyebrow and the hunter asked Crowley, “Oblivion, like void and all that?  I dunno Crowley, it sounds fun”

Crowley stared at Dean for a few more seconds before shaking his head “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, though the moose probably has, but I’m quite fond of being alive.  It’s really fun when you don’t have a death wish” Crowley toasted his glass “If you suddenly get some brains, I look forward to seeing you in hell”

And with that the demon was gone, leaving a faint aroma of sulfur behind.  Derek turned to talk to Dean about this angel of death, but the hunter spoke first “I didn’t want to kill Cas, okay?  I really didn’t.  But he had taken in the souls from purgatory and was going insane and killing a bunch of people.  I know it’s not an excuse, but I really didn’t want him to die.”  Dean stopped at that, biting his lip and looking away “And then leviathan killed him.”

Derek waited, but it didn’t seem like Dean had anything else to say.  The werewolf really didn’t know the whole story, so he couldn’t judge _that_ much.  Overall he knew very little about the details of Dean’s life, no matter how much he knew the hunter himself.  “I believe you.  For now we should focus on this angel anyway.  And who was the demon?”

“Crowley, current king of hell.” Dean answered immediately, smelling relieved. How that answer was relieving Derek had no idea, but the demon hadn’t killed them, so he took that as a plus.  “And ya, umm. We need to get a laptop.”


	9. I didn't lie and I ain't sayin' I told the whole truth

Getting back into the impala where it sat outside the library, Dean flipped open the laptop he had just bought, silently thanking somebody that the store owner had been helpful enough to set it up for him.  Not even debating about the morals of it for a second, he opened the internet and passed it over to Derek.  The werewolf made a displeased noise, reluctantly putting down the book he had bought while Dean was getting a laptop.  The hunter had no idea how he managed it, but on the way over they had gotten into a discussion on reading and web surfing and he had recommended Vonnegut.  As soon as they passed a bookstore the werewolf had bought Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five.  It was actually really nice considering Dean had lost all of his books a long time ago and now could ‘borrow’ them from Derek.  

Dean grinned, opening the pie box he had also brought and taking out a fork.  Derek rolled his eyes but began typing, dolefully researching.  The hunter had just decided he need to take pity on Derek and help with the research when the werewolf spoke.

“Alright, so it says here that the angel of death’s name is Azriel and there’s a bunch on summoning him, but most of it just looks like crap.  How do you even tell what’s real?” Derek asked, glancing over at Dean.

The hunter shrugged.  “Sam did that most often, but I suppose if you read some of them out to me I can tell you what sounds familiar?”

Derek sighed in exasperation but began reading aloud.  It was only when Dean had one piece of pie left that he heard something he recognized. 

“Hold up one second” He said, dropping his fork and grabbing the laptop, moving it to his now free lap from which Derek had unnoticeably quickly stolen the pie.  For a second Dean thought about stealing it back but decided it could be compensation for chucking the laptop at him.  There was only one piece left anyways.  Looking at the website, Dean quickly skimmed the ritual it outlined. 

“Wait, that’s the ritual that sounds real?  That one says to bring ice cream.  How does that sound real” Derek asked, his tone quite strongly suggesting that Dean was an idiot

“Death was eating pizza the first time I met him and when I summoned him I brought food for him.  Why the fuck wouldn’t Azriel like ice cream?  These death things always like food” Dean said distantly, still reading.  It was actually quite a short ritual, not requiring anything that they wouldn’t be able to find in Bobby’s house or the town.  A circle to summon Azriel into, a bunch of different herbs, some blood, an incantation and a spoken reason for the summoning, then Azriel would decide to come or not.  Apparently ice cream was supposed to help their chances. 

“I really think we should actually try this one, the circle looks like a modified devil’s trap. And it reminds me of a website Sam’s used before.  We could just summon him in the panic room, ask questions and then go” Dean said, raising his eyes to meet Derek’s questioningly.  The werewolf still looked uncertain, but rolled his eyes and nodded.

 

They ended up getting peanut butter chocolate ice cream for the angel of death.  It was really amusing, but also because it was the last tub of fancy stuff the convenience store they visited had left, along with packages of all the herbs they needed.  A really odd thing as usually Dean and Sam would have to go to a few different places.  Then, getting back to Bobby’s, they had used Dean for the blood, gone down to the panic room and drawn the circle, grabbed a lighter, mixed the herbs, and now were ready to say the incantation and reasoning statement.

Glancing once more at Derek to make sure he had the angel blade ready but hidden, Dean read off the incantation and then stated the reasoning they had agreed on, “We are looking for an item that belongs in Void.”

Flicking his lighter and dropping it in the herbs, they went up in a poof of flames.  With that Dean stood back, watching the circle. 

He had just about decided that it hadn’t worked when a voice spoke from behind.  Both hunter and werewolf jumping, the newcomer didn’t look concerned at all.  “Oh thank Father you two actually got good ice cream.  The last time I was summoned it was by a bunch of kids who brought one of those dollar store ice cream bars that are so cheap that they’re yellow.  They didn’t even have a good reason, but I hadn’t had anything to eat in such a long time that I decided to come anyways.  I mean, it’s ice cream”

The angel, Azriel, was a young woman, wearing clothes that Dean had seen in skin mags depicting dancers.  A soft black and almost see through t-shirt and short shorts that hung loosely off her frame, the outfit made it very awkward for Dean.  Yes, he was being fucked by a male werewolf but he was bi, tits were awesome.  Looking up from where she had been examining the ice cream, Dean took a step back, the angel’s clear eyes seeming to bore into him, filled with amusement as if she could tell what he was thinking. 

“You’re Azriel?” Dean asked cautiously.  This woman didn’t scream angel of death, but then again, Cas had only looked like a tax accountant before he flashed his wings and started to look like a terrifying all powerful holy tax accountant who could throw Dean back into hell.

“And you’re Dean Winchester and he’s Derek Hale.  Funny thing it is, how our names seem to follow us around.”  Azriel said in a tone suggesting a joke.  “You want to get to purgatory to get your angel back, and he’s only on this quest because he really likes you, though he only came at first because he didn’t care if he died.  The two of you fit perfectly together, really complementary, I have to say.”

“How do you know that?” Derek asked softly

“Well sourwolf, it’s my job to know these things” Derek flinched at the nickname like she had hit him and Azriel just gave him a sad look.  “You’re happy with Dean.  I won’t tell you to let go of the past because that’s stupid, but I should warn you that in the corridor between earth and purgatory, all bonds and outside influences don’t exist.  You could even say they are momentarily or indefinitely broken.  It’s to discourage people from releasing souls from different afterlife’s due to compulsion.  The bonds are cut as soon as you enter the corridor, and then when you leave they are either reformed or destroyed depending on whether or not you still want them”

“Why are you telling me this?” Derek questioned, glancing at Dean.  “And what corridors?”

“You know why, although it’ll come to mean more when you get over there. And the corridor’s that your little ritual thing will open up.  They aren’t like Dean’s portal, more like a door that goes through the place between worlds and then comes out the other side.  Anyways” She said, clapping her hands together and looking at Dean, “After you get out of the corridors, if you still want whatever bond you have, like, not your surface mind, but actually and _seriously_ want the bond, it will be remade.  And your question.” She said, changing the subject once again, because angels were allowed to do that “You want something from void, so I’ll ask you this.  What are you willing to give up? Your afterlife perhaps? I’ll give you something and when you die your soul will go to void.  If your Alpha so chooses, he can go with you.”

“Wait, like a demon deal?” Dean asked, inwardly cringing, not another fucking demon deal.  It wasn’t Sam this time, but he knew that if there was no other way to get Cas back he would agree to it.

“Of course not, I’m only demon _ized_ , I’m not actually a demon.  I’m suggesting that I give you something from void and then when you die on your own, whenever that may be, you’ll go to void instead of hell.  Fair deal don’t you think?  The oblivion afterlife of the angels?” Azriel suggested innocently. 

Biting his lip, Dean tilted his head at Azriel, debating.  He already knew he was going to agree, but he had no idea what the catch was.  “And if you just kill me after I agree?”

“I won’t” Azriel consoled, the assuring words not working to help Dean believe her.  It wasn’t like he had a choice though, he would pretty much do anything to get Cas back.

“Alright then.  I agree” Azriel grinned at his quick decision and Dean couldn’t help but feel that he had made a mistake he didn’t know about, though would probably come to regret a long ways down the road.  Disliking the mischievous look on the angel’s face, Dean resorted to distraction by asking, “So why’s Crowley so scared of you?”

Azriel’s laughter was not what he expected in response, and he had to force himself not to step back as she stood and approached him.  “I met him when he became king of hell.  You know how it is, always got to meet the new insects who think that they’re the bosses.” Reaching out, she ran one hand down the side of Dean’s face, ice coldness spreading out from the point of contact.  Derek growled as soon as she made contact and Dean felt himself pulled back and out of her reach.  The instinctual reaction seemed to only amuse the angel and she assured, “Calm werewolf, I’m not going to steal your mate.  And neither of you understand why Crowley’s scared of me because I think your lives are interesting.  Seeing who you are, it’s like in that movie about the magicians, ‘Now You See Me’.  I know the words don’t exactly fit, but we can always change quotes.  Whatever is going to happen with your lives was started a long time ago and I believe that what’s about to follow is really going to amaze.”

With those confusing words about pop culture the angel was gone, disappearing as quickly as she came with no wings or displacement of air to herald her movements.  Rounding on Derek, Dean pulled his arm out of the werewolf’s grip, forgoing the conversation about the angel to inquire what the fuck that had been about.

Derek looked chastised but not repentant, an undercurrent showing how unnerved he was when he answered, “She smelt like absence.  Like a gaping piece of existence that didn’t exist.  It just felt all wrong and when she touched you your scent started to change.”

“Oh.” Dean blinked, staring at Derek “And what did she mean by mate?”

Instantly Derek looked shifty, dropping his gaze.  “Shouldn’t we try and find what she left for us?”

Successfully distracted Dean whipped around, cursing before he spotted the place where the ice cream had been.  Now, instead of peanut butter chocolate ice cream there was a tomahawk, the weapon buried into the table.  Snorting, he turned and looked at Derek, “Well, this’ll be easy to get all the pieces together, we just have to stab the hellhound a bunch of times” Then he remembered what he had been asking.  “And no, you aren’t going to distract me.  What did she mean by mate?”

Derek shrugged, looking shifty.  “My wolf calls you mate”

“Wait, what? I’m your mate? How the hell did that happen?” Dean asked, feeling incredulous.  How was he an Alpha mate? “I’m a hunter”

“Apparently I feel comfortable around you, and you smell right.” Derek mumbled, looking peeved at Dean’s questions.  Well he had a fucking right to question, if he was Derek’s _mate_.  “It doesn’t matter anyways, unless I knot you nothing’s going to be different.”

Dean nodded, still confused, but willing to let that slide until he needed to know more.  Not that that was a guarantee that he would need to know more, it just _could_ happen _._ So, changing the subject, Dean smirked, “Now we’re going to figure out how to get that hellhound, which as we both know, means more research.”

The disgusted face Derek made was worth it. 


	10. I could say to myself, I've got the words but I can't speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so this next chapter has been split into two because it contains rape/non-con. For anyone who doesn't want to read that, just read this first chapter, and then the chapter posted tomorrow has a general look-back at anything that was moved ahead in the plot.

In all honesty, the person whose demon deal they found made Derek lose a bit more faith in humanity.  From the disgusted look on Dean’s face after they finished talking with the guy, he agreed.  Throughout the whole time dealing with the man who sold his soul Dean had smelt appalled and upset and Derek’s wolf had been furious at the pain his mate was showing, translating the protectiveness into being extremely tactile and protective of the hunter.  To Derek’s relief Dean hadn’t shunned the extra attention, allowing and even basking in it.  Derek knew dealing with the whole finding a person with a demon deal hadn’t been easy for Dean, especially when the hunter stormed into their motel room one night, explained the whole thing about how he sold his soul for his brother’s life, and then proceeded to suck the werewolf’s brains out through his dick. 

They actually got quite lucky with finding someone who made a demon deal, not having to look back through _too_ many records until they found a huge irregularity in lifestyle. A tiny company that had gotten huge overnight with no discernable reason, millions of dollars where there used to be no money.  They researched the head of the company for a bit and then followed him, eventually confronting him about the demon deal and using a combination of threats and consoling to get him to confess. 

The dude had sold his soul one year and 11 months ago for ten million dollars.  An afterlife in hell in exchange for money.  Dean had been really pissed off and so Derek had done most of the talking, barely managing to suppress growls at how upset the guy was that he now had to die, and had been so happy with the money.  They had only had three days before his deal came due, which was a good and bad thing.  They didn’t have enough time to go and take that vampire hunt that Dean had wanted to do, but they also didn’t have to wait a long time.

When the demon deal guy—who Derek hadn’t even bothered to learn the name of—started saying how he didn’t deserve to die, Derek had growled out that they would see him again when his deal ran out and then left.  He couldn’t imagine Dean ever having been so pathetic with his demon deal and this guy had done it for such a stupid reason.  After an almost public hand job in the nearest alley and a trip to get some pie from a bakery, Dean had relaxed quite a bit more. 

The next three days continued in much the same way, filled with sex, food and more preparation for going to purgatory.  They wouldn’t actually have to go there as soon as they completed the talisman, but Dean insisted on hiding the impala, packing up everything except the weapons they needed to create the talisman and a couple more to deal with any unforeseen complications.

Which brought them to now—11:30 on the night the demon deal guy’s deal came due—with Dean, Derek and demon deal guy all sitting in the guy’s living room.  It was going to be quite interesting as only demon deal guy could actually see the hellhound, and the other two would be swinging in the dark.  Well, Derek hoped he’d be able to smell the thing, but didn’t know how far werewolf senses would go.

“You okay?” Derek asked under his breath, kicking a foot out to stop Dean in his attempt at wearing a line in the floor.

“Fine” Dean answered, his voice tight and evidently _not_ fine.  Not caring what demon deal guy thought, Derek reached forward, grabbing Dean and pulling the hunter close to himself.  After placing a kiss on Dean’s head, Derek murmured, “It’s going to be fine.  They aren’t here for you”

“I know” Dean replied, just as quietly. 

They stood there together for a long time, waiting until the clock was flashing 55 to move and ignoring demon deal guy’s disgusted look.  Fucking homophobes, they were here to save the dudes life and he was upset over innocent touching?  Derek almost wanted to be inappropriate just to bug him.

When they did move Derek took the weapons while Dean painted a lovely circle in blood, practicing the incantation under his breath.  After that was done Derek threw the angel sword to the hunter, flashing a grin at the annoyed look Dean sent him.  The hunter rolled his eyes and huffed but took up his place next to the door.  Having often taken the quickest route inside a house, Derek planted himself next to the window, his eyes flashing red as he let himself shift.

“I can smell sulfur,” Derek observed, tapping the tomahawk from void against his leg. 

Dean grimaced, dryly muttering, “How exciting”

Snorting, Derek turned back to the window.  He had tried to lighten things up a bit, but could smell how scared Dean still was.  Well, if Derek had been torn apart by hellhounds and spent the next forty years in hell, he was pretty sure he would never want to face a hellhound again, saving friends or not.  The werewolf hoped Cas knew how good of a friend he had in Dean, especially if this weird alliance thing him and Derek had going dissolved after getting the angel from purgatory.  Which was a shitty thought, but hey, like Dean had said, good to be prepared.

The sulfur smell was suddenly everywhere and Derek snarled a warning as the glass in the windowpane exploded inwards.  Lashing out instinctively with the tomahawk, Derek got in a lucky hit, sinking the head of the weapon into the invisible creature that pressed its way past him.  Lunging forward Derek sank his claws into the hellhound, feeling incredibly unbalanced at not being able to see what he was attacking.  Dean jumped up too, lashing out with his angel blade and evidently catching the hellhound by the splatter of blood. 

The creature snarled and Derek growled back, trying to place the hellhound by the floating tomahawk and the smashing furniture.  Demon deal guy was screaming and Derek wanted to yell at him to shut up but knew it would do no good.  The couch that the guy was hiding behind tore itself apart and Dean lunged forward, sinking the angel blade into invisibility. 

Dean was thrown up against the wall and Derek’s wolf reacted, howling in anger as he rushed the hellhound.  Managing to get the purgatory blade into the hellhounds back before he was also thrown away, Derek let out a yelp as pain ripped through his arm.  Doing a double take after glancing at the bite, Derek felt something sliding under his skin, pressing against and covering his wolf.  Distantly he could see the demon deal guy’s chest tearing apart in blood and Dean leaping forward to yank the hellhound towards the circle, sparing no time to worry over the death. 

Stumbling over to help, Derek threw himself at the hellhound, pressing it down and blinking furiously.  At the last second of the incantation he managed to push himself away, the world spinning furiously as the affects of the hellhounds bite continued to rush through his veins.  His wolf was snarling, and he realized the bite was turning him feral.  Shit, fucking shit.  This was not good. 

The outline of the hellhound in the circle started to glow but Derek couldn’t find the control to think on the talisman being created, too focused on keeping his wolf from going after Dean.

The door into the living room ricocheted into the wall and Dean let out a shout of surprise. “There’s a second hellhound!”

“Dean, it bit me and my wolf’s reacting” Derek snarled out in warned, pressing his wrists against the sides of his head.  The second hellhound hit him and Derek twisted, biting the hellhound and ignoring the oddness of invisible fur underneath his teeth.  With the noise of Dean working on the talisman in the background Derek threw the hellhound off, ignoring as it scratched him and chucking it out the broken window, grabbing the bookcase and pulling it up as a blockade.  Dean closed the door again and Derek could hear him saying something, but still couldn’t focus.

Panting, Derek desperately tried to keep his wolf in.  The hellhound’s bite was making him feral, _insisting_ that he do something, that he was the Alpha and a show of force was needed, that his pack wasn’t here and so he needed to focus on the only member of his pack that was near.  The need to fight, claim, tear, bite and annihilate was overwhelming, a miasmas of mixed needs that stole all coherency and decorum from him as the bite spread.

He didn’t even register Dean opening the corridor to purgatory somewhere in the background, yelling at Derek to get in before the second hellhound came back.  Snarling and knowing he was still shifted, Derek doubled over and managed a few words through his haze, hoping desperately that Dean got the message.  “Can’t, my wolf, I just need,- I’m going to hurt you, I don’t want, have to get away.  Wait it out, this’ll go away, just need to wait”

The pack bond was the only thing holding him away from attacking Dean at the moment, the knowledge that this one already belonged to him and therefore did not need to be killed or claimed.  If he went into that corridor and Azriel was right about the whole breaking bonds and outside influences, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold back.  This was probably exactly why the angel of death had told him, though he had no idea how she had known. 

His choked off words appeared not to have sent the message across however, and just as the hellhound smashed through the door and invisibly lunged, Derek felt Dean grab him, yanking him backwards into the corridor and into darkness.


	11. Well now the blow's been softened since we are our own damn coffins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who missed it, I updated two chapters today, so go back and read the one before this, or this one won't make sense. 
> 
> Warning: This chapter has rape/non-con. It's graphic and may be triggering to some people. Again, the whole chapter can be skipped, anything that happened is explained in the next chapter tomorrow.

“Get the fuck in here!” Dean yelled at Derek, hearing but ignoring the garbled warnings the werewolf managed to get out.  The hunter knew that the bite from the hellhound was doing something really _not good_ to Derek’s wolf, but with the other hellhound breaking through the door, invisible and impossible to kill, he did the only thing he could think of.  Yanking Derek into the corridor and shutting the door hard behind, Dean didn’t even have a chance to breathe a sigh of relief before the werewolf was barreling into him from behind, shoving him into the dark wall of the corridor.  Hissing, Dean twisted, lashing back at Derek and catching him in the side of the head.  It was like a mouse attacking a lion however and Derek ignored Dean’s flailing, snarling and baring sharp wolf’s teeth. 

Uncertain of what Derek was trying to do, Dean pulled out his salt and wolfsbane infused knife that he had brought for unforeseen circumstances and brandished it.  The action proved useless as Derek’s next movement was to fling Dean into the ground, causing the hunter to see stars and drop his weapon.  Even with the short time Dean had been blinded for, he came back to Derek using his claws to get rid of Dean’s jeans, almost wrecking the clothing and cutting into Dean’s skin. 

“Derek, what the fuck dude?” Dean rasped, yanking himself up and attempting to crawl partially exposed over to where the knife had gone, the thing having slid across the floor to ricochet off one of the corridors walls.  His movement was once again stopped halfway as agony exploded in his ass and he realized that Derek had unceremoniously shoved himself into Dean, no stretching or lube to prepare him. 

Gasping in pain Dean kicked back, landing a lucky hit that pushed Derek out of him and allowed the hunter to pull his pants back up and scramble away to grab a hold of his knife.  Somehow amidst the hectic motion and spots of pain Dean had the wherewithal to shrug off his jacket as he turned, hissing when his scratched ass and thighs hit the cold floor.  Raising his knife just in time as a red-eyed Derek leaped at him, Dean slashed across the werewolf’s arm, getting a howl of fury in response.  Clambering to his feet, Dean feinted to the side before moving the opposite way around Derek, catching Derek on his shoulder.  Derek had said he just needed to wait and this would go away, so if Dean could distract him long enough, the hellhounds influence would run its course before anything _too_ detrimental happened. 

The werewolf hissed and spat at him, snaking one arm out lightning quick and grabbing Dean’s shirt, yanking him forward and avoiding the stab thrown his way.  Shoving his elbow into Derek’s chest in an effort to get away, Dean was quite rudely reminded that hitting a supernatural creature was often like hitting a brick wall.  His moment of error cost him the upper hand he had gotten, and Dean once again found himself thrown to the ground.  The werewolf slammed both the hunters’ arms into the floor with one hand, his claws curling into Dean’s skin.  With the other hand he roughly yanked Dean’s undone jeans down and shoved his cock back into Dean, this time the hunter unable to hold back his shriek of pain.  Twisting and withering on the floor, Dean tried anything he could do to get the werewolf off, managing to turn the knife in his hand and bring his arm around.  Derek quickly began fucking him, catching Dean off guard with more pain at the friction.  Twisting the knife up, Dean waited for Derek to press down again and impale himself on the poisoned blade.

Just as the werewolf began to do so, his words flashed once again through Dean’s mind, a Derek still partially in control of himself hissing that he didn’t want to hurt the hunter.  The words that Derek had said and the remembrance that this Derek was not in control—rather his wolf and whatever the fuck the hellhound had done to him were—caused Dean to think twice, making a split second decision that, if he was wrong, he wouldn’t live long enough to regret.  In this corridor the whole pack mentality thing that made Dean want to submit was not at work so it was definitely him alone making the decision.  He could kill Derek without any instinctual guilt, but Dean realized that he himself with no influencing mojo really _didn’t_ want Derek to die, and from what Derek had said, the werewolf didn’t want him dead or hurt either.  The werewolf had comforted him about the hellhound, done most of the work regarding demon deals, Derek wasn’t a bad guy.  What had Azriel said?  _Mate_.  And without any wolfsbane to burn Dean couldn’t even use an almost fatal wound to slow Derek down and heal it after.  The realization and subsequent loosening of Dean’s hold on the blade was enough that Derek only pressed against the knife, cutting him but not dealing a fatal blow.  This act of mercy earned him a harsh wrench in his arm as the blade was torn away and Derek sped up his thrusts, snarling in anger and ignoring Dean’s pained noises. 

Gasping both at the decision not to kill Derek and the pain from being fucked, Dean felt something give inside of him and some of the friction went away to be replaced by stinging as Derek thrusts were suddenly lubricated with blood.  Dean’s fucking blood.  Which was a pun that would totally be funny if it wasn’t so horrific and reminiscent of Dean’s time in hell.  Oh shit, he did not just go back to thinking of hell. 

That one errant thought paralyzed Dean and suddenly he was surrounded by fire and screaming again, trying to keep as still as he could while Alistair fucked him so that he might avoid the extra consequences that came with resistance.  He had read somewhere that there were only so many stones that could be piled upon a person before the added weight didn’t matter, but they somehow managed to get past that in hell.  And they did it _very_ well.

Dean felt tears gathering in his eyes and cried out as whatever demon on top of him today changed the pace of their thrusts, mocking laughter echoing in Dean’s ears and the snide question of when he would pick up the knife being sultrily whispered.  Shaking his head in denial, Dean let out a scream when he felt the cock in his ass expanding at its base, the larger part being repeatedly shoved in and out of his torn rim.  The claws at the tops of his arms dug deeper and Dean attempted to squirm away, unable to stay still through this torture.  The cock kept on expanding, the _knot_ pressing unforgivingly against his entrance until it was finally thrust inside one last time, tearing him further along with a long scream of pain.  A few more shallow thrusts inside him that pulled harshly at his bloodied rim and then jaws clammed down on the back of Dean’s neck, the demon coming deep inside him and growling out in triumph.  The released come felt like fire branding him and Dean struggled, whimpering pathetically as more and more was pumped out deep inside.  So much so that he knew it would never all be cleaned out, he would always carry this demon’s scent with him.

The demon tugged back with its knot and Dean yelped, throwing one of his legs around it to keep it still and from tearing him further.  A mocking voice crowed in glee and taunted him, asking how much their little grasshopper loved being stuffed full and used, how he was good for nothing except being held down and bred like the bitch he was.  How he loved cock so much that he would do anything to keep it in his ass. 

Bracing himself, Dean waited for the other demons to come as well, for the knives and blades to descend and tear the rest of him open.  The teeth unhinged themselves from the back of his neck and he was surprised to feel a rough tongue lapping at the blood that flowed from the bite.  That hadn’t happened before, and the saliva didn’t burn like every other acidic liquid in hell, so what was happening?  What were they trying different?

Opening his eyes to slits, Dean was faced with another earthshaking awareness in the lack of fire.  Instead of hell a long corridor met him, glass walls overlooking a pitch black world with thousands of bursting and ever changing colors.  It was gorgeous and nothing like hell except the pain that Dean was feeling which was the only reminiscent thing of the place he had spent forty years in.  Forty years, but he had gotten out, Cas had pulled him out.  Alistair was dead, so it was _Derek_ on top and still inside of him, Derek who had been influenced by the hellhound and then mauled and ra-fucked Dean.  But it had been an outside influence, those were all supposed to go away.  Why didn’t this one?  Azriel had said that all outside influences were broken when in the corridors, so why the fuck hadn’t this one been stopped?

Derek shifted and Dean instantly pulled him closer with his leg, still acutely aware of the werewolf’s knot inside of him.  Oh but it burned.  So fucking bad.  This huge ball at the base of Derek’s cock that was unforgivingly pressed up inside Dean’s bleeding ass and sore insides.  Derek’s front and his thighs were sending lines of fire through Dean from the scratches the werewolf had inflicted while trying to get to Dean’s ass.  The werewolf himself was growling softly, lapping at the back of Dean’s neck from where he had been bitten.  Son of a bitch! Dean tensed up even more and silently cursed the movement for all the aches it revealed, but he was too focused on the werewolf’s bite to relax.  He didn’t feel anything like he had when he was Turned into a vampire, all of the pain staying the same and no rearranging of anything in his very core.  Maybe, just maybe the bite was seen as an outside influence and Dean would be safe from it.  Then again, considering what had happened with the hellhound’s bite on Derek, he doubted he would get that lucky.  Doubted, but it was possible, that the bite could hopefully, hopefully, _hopefully_ not have actually taken. 

Dean wanted to think more on the matter but the adrenalin rush, hell flashback, and being fucked and knotted were all catching up to him.  He couldn’t tell if it was darkness coloring his vision or just the colors disappearing from the corridor.  Either way, Dean was out before he could even care to wonder. 


	12. Well you told me about nowhere well it sounds like someplace I'd like to go.

Derek woke slowly, as if in a daze.  There was a wonderful pressure around his cock and he felt his knot formed as well, stuffed deeply within someone.  He moved a little bit and the body beneath him let out a gasp of pain.  At the noise his eyes flew open and he froze, torn between running the hell away and staying here and not hurting Dean any further as his memories came back to him in a rush.  He remembered being bitten by the hellhound and then Dean catching it and turning it into a piece of the talisman, they had thought that that was it, but then there was a second werewolf that they had to blockade against.  The hellhound’s bite had affected Derek, making him feral and forcing his wolf into action.  He had tried to warn Dean away but the idiot had pulled him into the corridor.

As the rest of his memories came back it felt like he was watching them happen but hadn’t actively participated, just been a passenger within his own head.  Before Derek had gone into the corridor he had reached the level of feralty that made him want to be with his pack, to run and belong and command even though the only part of the pack that was there was Dean.  The corridor had stopped Derek from reaching the level where he just wanted to kill everything, but the damage the hellhound had done didn’t go away.  Derek’s wolf had been furious because he spent all that time claiming Dean and making the hunter belong to him only to have the corridor dissipate their bond, freeing the hunter from Derek’s influence.  In his fury he had decided that the only thing to do was to reclaim Dean, make sure he knew who he belonged to and accepted it, willingly or not. 

He had attacked Dean and attempted to mount him, but the hunter had fought back, turning the blade they had prepared for the hellhound back on him.  The slashes had just infuriated Derek’s wolf and he had done everything to get Dean underneath him.  He hadn’t noticed at the time, but Dean had gotten the perfect opportunity to kill him, holding the knife just right so that Derek’s own need would be the reason he died.  But for some reason, some random, idiotic and lacking in self preservation reason, Dean had let go of the knife, had allowed Derek to live even though Derek was raping him, fucking him like a wild animal.  Because that hadn’t clicked at the time, Derek had felt he needed to go further, ignoring Dean’s cries of pain and the way the hunter had gone so still beneath him, Derek had allowed his knot to form, greedily tying himself to the hunter without any thoughts for the hunter’s pained reactions.  He had _knotted_ Dean, an invasion so extreme that he wanted to cry.  Being knotted changed people’s scents permanently, changed Dean into Derek’s mate, though that probably hadn’t happened due to the corridor.  While Dean wouldn’t be able to smell it himself, every supernatural creature would know that he belonged to Derek, even if he actually didn’t.  

And Derek had _bit_ Dean.  Instantly worried, Derek opened his eyes and moved back enough that he could see the bite on the back of Dean’s neck, opening his mouth to scent the air.  Beneath the smell of blood, pain and terror there was no smell of werewolf so thankfully, ignoring everything else Derek had done, he had not Turned Dean.  Regardless, he wanted to leave, to rid Dean of himself so that the hunter never had to deal with him again.  But his knot was still there, still connecting them and keeping Derek from fleeing.

As if the thought had drawn the hunter from unconsciousness, Dean spoke, his voice scratchy and hoarse from screaming. “Derek? Are you back?”

“Yes” Derek managed, his throat closing up until it was almost impossible to get even that one word out. 

“Oh.  Okay. Umm, when will that go down?” Dean asked, his tone careful even though his scent was betraying his fear. 

For a moment Derek couldn’t figure out what the hunter was talking about, but then he realized that the only thing he _could_ be talking about was Derek’s knot.  So he admitted, “I don’t know, I’ve never done this before.  I’ve heard it’s about an hour, but I don’t know how long it’s already been.”

Dean nodded beneath him but didn’t respond.  Derek’s wolf was whimpering now, devastated by the harm it had caused such an important pack member.  “Dean, I’m so fucking sorry-”

“Don’t” Dean interrupted, tensing beneath Derek even though the werewolf could feel the extra pain that it brought.  “Just, please don’t.”

The denial made Derek feel like his heart was breaking, and he realized that this was it.  They would go into purgatory and Dean would only bring his angel back.  He wouldn’t want anything else to do with Derek.  At this awareness Derek wanted to howl in pain, to cry out and run and hide.  He lost fucking everybody, and now, tied to the mate he had just raped, he was losing the last person he had ever had.  Dean might’ve been able to forgive all the other things Derek had done to him, but without the submission instinct he would never forgive this.

Luckily it seemed as though Derek had been out of it for a while and he soon felt the swelling in his knot going down.   He warned Dean before he pulled out, unable to ignore either the pained noise Dean made or the trickle of mixed come and blood that ran out of his loose hole.  Completely ignoring any of his own scratches, Derek scrambled back, hitting the wall of the other side of the corridor and not bothering to clean himself up.  Dean moved stiffly, hissing in pain when he attempted to push himself up.

“Do you want me to help?” Derek asked tentatively, still poised to run.

Dean turned, finally looking at him.  The hunter looked lost and withdrawn, pain making itself known in the grimace on his face.  When he answered it was barely a whisper. “Yes”

Swallowing and knowing that this was the least Derek could do, he shakily stood up, tucking himself away so that Dean—or he himself—didn’t need to see the hunters blood on him.  First he went over and grabbed Dean’s jacket, as the hunter made sure to watch him the whole time Derek moved only within his sight, slowly walking closer and falling to his knees in front of Dean.  He didn’t have any water to clean Dean up with, and a quick glance around showed that the corridor was empty of liquids as well.  He went to rip a strip off of his shirt, but then, realizing how wrecked Dean’s was, he stopped.

“Your shirt’s all cut up, you can wear mine, and then I can use the rest to clean you off.”  He suggested, and the hunter nodded, propping himself up on his elbows and hissing in pain as his arms bled where Derek had held him down.  He rested his head on his balled up hands for a second, breathing deeply before he pulled the shirt off, exposing the bite Derek had left on his neck.  Derek pulled off his own jacket and shirt, laying it on an unsoiled piece of ground before taking Dean’s.  He quickly tore a strip off, bundling it up and meeting Dean’s eyes before reaching over and cleaning the cut’s on Dean’s back.  The whole time the hunter watched him, not wincing or making any noise.  When the cuts were done Derek moved up to his bite, ripping off another piece of fabric before dabbing at it.

“Am I Turned?” Dean asked quietly, and Derek was relieved to give him one piece of good news

“No.  I guess because of the corridor it didn’t take.  Because you don’t want it, even when we leave it’ll still just be a bite.”  Derek answered, not pausing in his ministrations.

Dean nodded, a flash of relief crossing his scent.  The fear and other negative emotions were still there and Derek could smell one that he didn’t recognize, a type of reminiscent horror and absolute terror that while it could’ve made sense in context, seemed to speak of something deeper.  As he finished the bite he quickly forgot about it in favor of his own fear of what he had to clean next, rocking back and wringing the blood soaked fabric in his hand. 

“Dean, do you want me to-,” He made a gesture towards Dean’s lower body and the hunter winced, flicking his eyes away.  The werewolf could tell he was mentally warring with himself and when he finally nodded Derek was certain he had seen wrong.  “Are you sure?”

“Just fucking do it” Dean spat, glaring at the werewolf.  Derek flinched but nodded, tearing off a third strip of fabric and gently parting Dean’s ass cheeks.  The hunter hissed at the movement but made no protests.  Trying to clean Dean as quickly as he could, Derek couldn’t ignore the rips he could see, the blood and come mix that stained Dean. 

“We need to find water as soon as possible, you’re really torn up,” Derek trailed off, realizing how futile his cleaning was when more fluid dribbled out of Dean.  When werewolves knotted, they came a _lot._

Dean flinched and his hole attempted to tighten, but was still loose from Derek’s treatment of it the night before.  The hunter pulled away, saying in a clipped tone, “Yup”

Taking the motion as a dismissal Derek sat back and Dean closed his eyes, breathing heavily before pushing himself up, pulling up his jeans and gasping in pain.  Derek wordlessly passed him his shirt and Dean quickly pulled it on, also putting on his jacket when Derek handed that over.  Looking down at Dean’s shirt, Derek deemed it unusable, tearing the rest of it up into strips and tying it together so it’d be easier to carry.

Once finished he looked up at Dean, swallowing nervously.  “Do you want to stay here for longer or go to purgatory?”

Dean winced at the question but motioned for Derek to go on ahead, evidently choosing the second option.  The werewolf didn’t argue, watching Dean limp along behind him out of the corner of his eye.  The corridor, for all that it seemed to be huge, was actually quite short, only a few more meters before they reached the other side.  Stopping at the door, Derek glanced back once more at Dean before pushing it open.  As soon as he walked through the door he wouldn’t have Dean anymore, the pack bond would be gone and wouldn’t be something he could easily repair, if he even got the chance.  He would still have it on his side but Dean would break it off, leaving him feeling lost and alone.  He wouldn’t even or ever get the mate bond he had created when he knotted Dean. 

“What are you waiting for” Dean’s voice broke through Derek’s bout of self-loathing and he startled, taking a deep breath and stepping through. 

Dean quickly followed, grimacing at the small drop from the corridor into purgatory and taking a few steps forward, but Derek was too stunned to look around.  Dean himself blinked and looked back at the werewolf as if surprised too. 

“Why can I feel you now?” Dean asked, squinting in the grey light and head tilted. 

Derek just gaped, amazed at the results to what he had just forced on Dean, and what the hunter had apparently accepted, even if just subconsciously.  Without thinking he blurted out, “You’re my mate.  You actually became my mate”

“Mate?” Dean’s eyes widened as he seemed to remember something.  “Oh, shit, with the whole knotting thing.  You mentioned that”

Nodding, Derek had to abort his instinctual movement forwards as his wolf growled in happiness and demanded that he be close to Dean.  That was definitely not going to happen until Dean decided he wanted to be near Derek.  It was enough that Dean had accepted the bond.

“So what’s it mean?” Dean inquired with a voice full of unhappy uncertainty

Derek glanced away, unable to meet the hunter’s eyes due to his happiness as he explained.  “It gives us a bond.  We’ll be able to feel if one another are alive and the most strong emotions.  Also a general direction, I don’t really know all that the bond lets us know, I was very young the last time I met someone with a mate bond.”

 

~*~

 

Knowing Derek could smell his heartbeat, Dean attempted desperately to slow it, trying to not to show how his words were affecting the hunter.  If he was Derek’s mate, and Derek was his, the werewolf wouldn’t be _able_ to leave him, Dean’s mind treacherously supplied as his very first reaction to the explanation about mates.  If they were actually bonded, the werewolf couldn’t leave like everyone else.  Though considering what Derek had just done, Dean should want to get fucking far away from Derek.  Tear his head off and run miles away to never have to see him again.  Dean was pretty fucking certain that the reason he felt like curling into Derek in order to be protected was because of the mate and park bonds he now shared with the werewolf.  Why the hell else would he want to be so close to someone who had hurt him so much, he wasn’t a fucking masochist and he owed Derek nothing.  Which meant that it had to be the same influencing that led him to submit and do anything for Derek while they had sex.

The only problem with this theory of Dean’s however, was what Azriel had turned to him and very specifically said.  ‘ _After you get out of the corridors, if you still want whatever bond you have, like, not your surface mind, but actually and seriously want the bond, it will be remade.’_   Which meant that Dean wanted this.  That he actually was pathetic enough to be following around someone who had hurt him. 

Dean’s mind was apparently playing the role of devil’s advocate because its snarky response to that was to say that Derek hadn’t wanted to hurt him.  If that had been rape, then it went both ways.  Plus, never in the whole time that they had been fighting had Dean actually said _no_.  Any other circumstance and Dean would’ve totally been fine with it, just told Derek to use some lube, take some time and explain mating to him first.  And he could feel Derek in the back of his head, just a weird knowledge that the werewolf was alive and completely filled with a mixture of self loathing, pain and the desire to give comfort.  Those weren’t exactly happy rapist feelings.  Well, they could be, but Dean was going to take them as comfort in this instance.  Another voice that sounded suspiciously like Sam told Dean that he was being extremely emotionally unhealthy to be going back to Derek.  That this was abusive and that Dean needed to get out of the situation, grab his angel and leave the werewolf in purgatory where monsters like him belonged.  He was still wet from a mix of his blood and Derek’s come that had continued to leak out, for fucks sake.  Having already been in a relationship with Derek, if he stayed now with the werewolf he would become dependent and fucked up.

In reply to that voice, Dean commented that hearing voices was a sign of insanity and that Dean was not insane, as well as the fact that he had become completely emotionally dependent on other people and they had left him, so what was the fucking matter if he became dependent on someone who was freaking _bonded_ to him?  As for the fucked up thing?  Dean’s whole life was fucked up.  He had never had a healthy relationship other than a few friends who he barely saw and were actually acquaintances rather than friends.  Yes, Derek had caused him to have a hell flashback, but it’s not like it was the first time someone did that and it hadn’t actually been hell.  It was totally something done in hell, but it wasn’t hell itself. 

It was freaking Derek, and no, Dean wasn’t going to let him off the hook like he hadn’t done anything, but yes, he was going to go with his practiced and perfected art of ignoring the problem for as long as he could.  Additionally, Derek was a necessary companion in purgatory.  With the amount Dean was limping, bleeding, and probably smelling like a werewolf’s bitch, having said werewolf with him would do loads for keeping other monsters from attempting to claim him.  He was pretty sure he’d be able to push the pain to the back of his mind to fight, but he was going to need someone to watch his back for bigger enemies, sleeping and other general security.  The fact that Dean needed Derek for survival would save the hunter from having to think up more reasons to keep him around until they found Cas, after which he’d need more excuses.

Because Dean _belonged_ to Derek, the Alpha had fucking claimed him, so he should be able to trust Derek to take care of him, or at least not hurt him.  The whole thing of owning someone was messed up, but it was a two way street that shouldn’t accept non-consensual abuse.  Honestly, Dean loved the attention Derek gave him, the possessive touches that said that someone actually needed Dean.  And Dean knew that werewolf did need him, it wasn’t just a dependency, rather _co_ dependency.  A little more fucked up and sexual, but other than that, quite like the relationship he had with his brother, however that had happened in the short amount of time the two of them knew each other.  ‘Cause Dean still needed Derek.

Belatedly replying to Derek, Dean nodded, turning away from the werewolf and speaking.  “We should see if we can find a stream.  That’s where we found Cas last time, and I’d rather not go around killing and torturing for information again.”

So maybe that last point had been a poorly hidden threat to Derek, and maybe he had to move slightly so that Derek was still in his peripheral vision, but that was because he didn’t trust the werewolf.  It had nothing to do with wanting to break down and be around someone he could lean into.  Seriously, what the fuck was up with this bond thing?

Derek gave a small noise of tentative agreement and then nervously asked, “Do you want me to take away your pain?”

Pausing, Dean nodded.  His ass was in fucking agony and his other scratches and bites hurt, and while usually Dean could deal with it, he was going to be walking through purgatory.  Limping around with pride wouldn’t help things. 

Moving closer to him, Derek reached out his hand and rested it over his bite mark on the back of Dean’s neck, back lines running up his arm in the corner of the hunter’s vision.  It was probably more insane and definitely not for the werewolf, but not able to stand the amount of self loathing rolling through Derek, Dean ducked down a bit, pressing his neck back into Derek’s hand. 

Even Dean could hear the hitch in Derek’s breath, and he muttered as a reassurance, “I don’t hate you”

The words worked enough that Derek relaxed somewhat, but he was still tense and Dean felt no responsibilities to change that.  The Alpha left his hand on Dean’s neck, and he realized he felt comforted.  The pain was gone and he was finding calm at the hands of his abuser.  Okay, he was officially fucked up, if the rest of his life hadn’t already showed that.  When they got Cas and went back through those corridors, Dean was almost looking forward to seeing if it was just the result of the bond.  Almost looking forward to it, because if it wasn’t then Dean didn’t have an excuse.  It had been known to happen in the past, the whole safety amongst harm bringers.  Cas had threatened to throw the hunter back to hell and later betrayed him, yet Dean still felt the safest when he was near his angel.  Even with Derek around he knew that was one thing that wasn’t going to change.

Instead of an awkward moment of realization that they were standing so close, there was scrabbling noise to the side and Dean and Derek instantly jumped into motion.  Having been in purgatory longer than he had been back on Earth and used to fighting with Benny, Dean drew his weapon as he moved.  All the pain came back as soon as he moved so abruptly, but he dismissed it to the back of his mind as a duo of vampires descended into the clearing.  Both of them went after Dean.  Evidently they were so blood starved that they hadn’t even thought to plan a strategy like going after the Alpha instead of straight for a source of food.  Granted Dean was a Winchester, but they didn’t know that and he was just going to attribute their decision to their idiocy. 

The first vampire went down easy with a few well placed swipes and having fallen back into the purgatory mindset, Dean incapacitated and pinned the other against a tree.

“Where’s the angel?” He spat into the vampires face, pressing the blade into its neck.  The vampire only laughed as a response and Dean grinned, having long since figured out how to tell if a monster was just making a last stand or if it was actually aware of where his multidimensional wavelength of celestial light in a vessel was.  As this monster fell into the category of the latter, Dean carefully sunk his blade into the vampire’s eye and twisted.  The important thing was to not go _too_ far, just enough to cause the best amount of pain for an interrogation.  As the vampire screamed in pain, Dean wondered if the hell flashback during Derek fucking him had put the hunter into a hell mindset along with the purgatory one.  Oh, the joys of having so many negative mindsets.

“Where’s the angel?”  Dean hissed again, and now from the widening of the vampire’s remaining eye, he knew that the monster had recognized him. Well, what could Dean say?  Occasionally he may have been too preoccupied to care of half dead monsters crawling away, and maybe they spread the word of a hunter torturing monsters while looking for his angel.

“You left” The vampire accused and Dean brought the knife up again.  This time before he could add another mar to the vampire’s face it quickly spat out an answer.  “Following the stream!  That’s all I know, he’s following the water”

Satisfied with this answer, Dean sliced the vampires head off, stepping back and almost falling over as his body recalled that it was hurt.   Sitting would be great about now, if it meant that Dean wasn’t lowering himself into a pool of vampire blood.  Remembering suddenly that it was _Derek_ with him and not Benny, Dean turned, warily watching the werewolf who stared right back at him.  Derek’s eyes were wide and all the fear that Dean had noticed him show around the hunter at the beginning of their alliance had come back, more now that Dean could actually feel it through their bond. 

“I’m not going to hurt you” Dean reassured, biting his lip.  “And I really shouldn’t be the one reassuring you, but apparently I am.  So yes, I’m pissed at you and I’m pissed that I’m not _that_ pissed at you, but I’m not going to hurt or kill you.”

Derek’s eyes flickered over to the body of the dead vampire and he asked, “Why?”

Thinking on how to answer Dean limped over to Derek, stopping really quickly and breathing heavily as he realized that one thing the fighting _had_ manage to do was reopen his wounds.  Well fuck, how the hell was he supposed to get the rest of the way over to the werewolf?  Luckily and definitely not by luck, Derek closed the rest of the distance between them, outwardly not showing much, but through the bond he was wary and scared.  When Derek stopped in front of Dean the hunter focused on the bond more heavily, thinking about it for a second.  Derek was scared, but it was only partially of any physical pain that Dean could inflict, more of it was a fear that Dean himself had felt on numerous occasions, the fear of abandonment. 

“I haven’t forgiven you.  But I’m fucked up enough to still need you.” Dean whispered.  He had meant to say something different and more, but was far too tired and worn out to care what came out of his mouth, so instead he changed the subject.  They could broach it later.  “I don’t know about you, but I need to sleep so we should really find somewhere.  Again, preferably near water, as that’s around where Cas will probably be, going on the vamp and last time I found him.”

For a second it looked like the werewolf would pursue the earlier topic further, but then Derek just as silently agreed, pressing aside his fears as well. 


	13. I can see it in your eyes like I taste your lips and I'm very sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters after this. Next one is long again, and then the last one is relatively short, though I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.

They spent the better part of an hour moving through purgatory before finding a reasonable place to sleep, managing to not get attacked once.  Dean hadn’t made it far before he had needed to lean on Derek, walking independently upright impossible through the pain that the werewolf took away.  They ended up at the foot of a huge rock pile which Derek sniffed out and declared had a lack of anything living or harmful.  The werewolf seemed morbidly fascinated with purgatory but having already been there for a year, Dean merely started setting up camp.  Deciding against a fire due to his weakness and not wanting to get attacked, setting up camp only consisted of finding the best place to lie down.

Having not found much he moved back to where Derek had sat down with his legs out and made another split second decision.   He hadn’t regretted the last one, and while he probably would regret this one in the morning, he didn’t now.  Feeling like an old man as he painfully sat next to the werewolf, Dean rolled onto his side, placing his head in Derek’s lap and presenting the back of his neck to the werewolf. 

“Are you sure?” Derek asked, lightly passing one hand over Dean’s hair.  The hunter nodded into Derek’s leg, taking the time to feel incredibly grateful that Derek hadn’t Turned him.  Neither of them had managed to get clean, so not only would Dean be sticky with Derek’s seed for a long time, but Derek would also be covered in Dean’s blood.  That was not something Dean needed to smell tonight, he’d already have nightmares as it was. 

 

When he woke from hellfire the next morning, panting like he had run miles and with the echoes of his own screams in his ears, he was seriously debating whether a real smell would’ve made it worse.  Dimly he was aware of Derek calling his name, worry and panic pouring through the bond in a way that didn’t help at all.  He could feel the werewolf’s hands hovering around his head like Derek didn’t know whether he should touch the hunter and was glad the werewolf hadn’t.  Nevertheless, just because Derek couldn’t touch Dean without the hunter freaking out didn’t mean visa versa was true.

Twisting around and gasping at the pain from the movement, Dean buried his face into Derek’s chest, chanting at the werewolf not to touch him under his breath.  He couldn’t be caged right now but he needed the security that illogically came from Derek.  So yes, he was fucked up, but it was his fucked up life and if he needed an Alpha werewolf only a little less than he needed his angel or his brother, then that’s just the way things were going to go. 

“Were you dreaming about, yesterday?” Derek asked brokenly after a few minutes had passed and Dean had caught his breath.

The hunter could hear the trepidation in the werewolf’s voice and knew that he was scared that Dean would confirm his question.  If only they could be so lucky.  “No, Hell”

He knew that that answer would hurt Derek when the werewolf made the connection, but he was teetering on the fine line between pissed off and desperately wanting Derek, so he really couldn’t care less.  Okay, maybe he could, but he didn’t have to do anything about it. 

“You had a flashback yesterday” Derek realized quietly, showing he had understood.  The horror in his voice succeeded in making Dean feel terrible, but he refused to comfort his Alpha.  Which meant that nudging his face into Derek’s neck and breathing in deeply was just searching for his own comfort. 

Then, when he noticed how Derek had his fists clenched white in an effort not to touch Dean, it was also completely for his own sake that he blurted out, “You can touch me, just don’t cage me in”

“You sure?” Derek checked like a broken record, his hands hovering over Dean’s back.  The hunter nodded into his shoulder and Derek carefully started rubbing up and down Dean’s back, pressing into the muscles that were strained.  Thankfully he didn’t move any lower.  Dean knew he’d let Derek fuck him again, but right now he really couldn’t stand the thought.  He was torn up and because of the lack of water, the come and blood that had spilled out of him were dried now, scratching uncomfortable and reopening the tears.  Plus there was the emotional aspect of it.  Yes, he really liked Derek and actually felt safe with the guy, but that didn’t mean he was just going to jump right back into bed with him after being so brutally fucked.  He had already decided that it wasn’t rape,—even though it probably had been—and so he could deal with the emotional aspects much better.  Again, a little less rough, better timing and he would’ve totally been on board. 

Opening his eyes and twisting his head some so that he could look up at Derek, Dean watched the werewolf watching him.  Dean and Cas had used to do this, something Sam had always bugged the hunter about.  His brother had once tried to bug Cas, but the angel hadn’t understood why staring at Dean for minutes on end wasn’t socially acceptable.  He was kind of—read, definitely—glad that Derek also indulged in the habit.  While Dean would’ve been very happy in a relationship with the angel, they had never ended up going there, living instead as really good friends.  Then there was the whole thing with Meg, who Dean had no idea what not-crazy-Cas thought of.  End point of sappiness, he was actually happy with Derek and really glad that they could hold moments of casual ‘eye-fucking’, something he would never admit to thinking even under torture. 

“We should get going” Dean murmured, breaking through the silence.  Derek hesitantly smiled and Dean snorted, rolling over and wincing as he pushed himself to his feet.  Hoping that none of his wounds broke open again he added, “Okay, we really need to get to a river”

 

~*~

 

“It smells wetter over there.  I mean, I don’t usually go around looking for water like that, but I can smell it” Derek commented, nodding to the right of the rocks they had slept underneath. 

“So much fucking walking.  Seriously, I really miss my baby now.”  Dean sighed, glancing at Derek.  “I didn’t have a car for my year in here, and now I have to get used to it all over again.”

Derek winced and stood up, reaching out and touching Dean’s arm to take away the pain.  It was his fault that Dean was in such pain in the first place.  “I’m sorry”

“Hey, it’s not like you would’ve done that when in your right mind” Dean shrugged and Derek blinked, surprised.  The hunter had done little but surprise him over Derek’s many mistakes, constantly doing the opposite of what any normal person would do. 

“Why do you do that?” He asked, wincing as it slipped out. 

“Do what?” Dean asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Make excuses for me” Derek clarified, shuffling his foot and then stopping as he realized what a Stiles action that was to do. 

Dean stilled, looking a mix of lost and determined. “Would you excuse yourself then?” Derek blinked, surprised.  Then the hunter’s tone changed and he continued, “What happened? Why did you do that me?”

Unprepared Derek whispered, “You didn’t belong to me anymore and my wolf panicked”

“That happened because your wolf panicked? Dean asked, his eyes narrowing and surprise coloring his scent.

Derek swallowed, trying desperately to explain.  “The hellhound bit me and it poisoned my wolf, it made my feral and like I needed to defend my pack.  But I don’t have a pack here, you were the only one I had, and when the corridor took that away I couldn’t wrestle back control from the bite.  I needed to prove that you were mine.”

The hunter bit his lip, looking down and away from Derek as he muttered in a voice that sounded disbelievingly amused, “And I can’t even hate you for it.” The sentence caused an odd roll of emotions through Derek, happiness and pain warring. 

“I think Crowley sent the second hellhound.” Dean changed the subject before Derek had to formulate a reply.

Thrown off by the change Derek blinked, resolving that they would only talk about it only if Dean wanted to talk.  “I guess that would make sense.  I don’t know Crowley as well as you do”

Dean nodded, stepping away from the rock.  He made it a few paces before stopping and turning back to Derek.  The werewolf didn’t know why the hunter was looking at him so expectantly but he slowly walked over, positioning himself in front of Dean at the hunters prompting. 

 “I know that there were only two vampires yesterday and they both went after me, but I need to be able to trust you to have my back while we’re in here.  You want to make up for what you did, you’re going to have to help and be useful to me.” Dean stated, watching Derek. 

The werewolf nodded, the harsh words hurting and making his wolf recoil even though they were more expected than the excuses the hunter made for him.  A soft touch to the side of his face contrasted with Dean’s words and Derek met Dean’s gaze, closing his eyes as the hunter leaned in and softly kissed him.   His wolf instantly tried to take charge of the kiss, running his tongue over Dean’s lips.  He froze at his recklessness, but Dean parted his lips with a soft sigh, allowing the kiss to deepen and continue for a few moments before pulling back and resting his forehead against Derek’s.

“We can make this work” The hunter whispered.

Yes, Derek thought optimistically for once, they could.  


	14. We fold and we had made a wish that we would be missed if one another just did not exist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Castiel!

Finding Cas _this_ time around was just as awesome as the first, if a little sooner due to the corridor spitting them out near the angel.  Only three days later and many monsters later Dean and Derek found the angel, following the directions they got from the interrogated and staying near rivers.  Dean and Derek had been sleeping next to each other every night, wrapped up in the other’s arms but never taking it further than kissing.  Dean was actually quite content.  Derek didn’t demand anything of the hunter and Dean was able to enjoy the closeness and comfort without being wary of any types of flashback.  Another benefit were the occasional times when Dean would see black lines run up Derek’s arms and the pain from wounds that were never still long enough to heal over disappeared.  They had washed up separately at the river, but Dean’s body still hadn’t completely healed, no longer an active pain but a passive and omnipresent one

Evening had recently began on the fourth day in purgatory when they rounded a bend just in time to find Castiel fighting two leviathans in a small grass filled clearing by—surprise, surprise—another river. 

Swearing in a mix of surprise, concern, and elation, Dean quickly darted forward, catching the second leviathan off guard and swinging it towards the werewolf to give Derek a chance to rip its head off.  Meanwhile Cas danced fluidly around the first one, flashes of light showing that he was attacking it though doing little damage.  Remembering how ‘leviathan beats angel’ and Cas didn’t have anything to remove its head with, Dean waited until Cas unintentionally gave him an opening before swinging out and letting the leviathan’s head join its partner on the ground. 

Even when it was dead Cas stepped as though he was preparing to be attacked again, but when he recognized Dean he froze.  “Dean?”

“Hey Cas” Dean grinned, elation overwriting all other feelings and he strode closer, mimicking the first time he had found Cas in purgatory by wrapping the angel in his arms. 

Again like the last time, Cas was seemingly unaware of the purpose of the movement and didn’t reciprocate.  Instead he just looked the angelic version of flabbergasted, stating, “You aren’t supposed to be here.  You got out.”

“Like I was going to leave you in here” Dean scoffed, stepping back and wincing slightly.  That’s always how it went.  Limp around, fight bad guys, forget about the pain, kill bad guys, pain comes back. 

“You’re hurt” Cas observed, reinvading Dean’s personal space and looking at him with a critical eye that widened in surprise as he did his mojo thing to take in Dean’s injuries.  Dean winced, hoping that Cas would let it go, but no such luck. “You’re bleeding from unhealed wounds and covered in a werewolf’s scent.”

Narrowing his eyes, Cas turned his head, noting Derek for the first time and showing his amazing abilities at stating the obvious, his voice sounding like he was preparing to reign angelic justice down on Derek. “That’s not Benny”

Catching Cas’ arm before he could do anything— it wasn’t like the hunter could stop him, but he could try—Dean replied, “Benny stayed on earth, I was only working with him to find the portal.  This is Derek.  Derek, this is Cas”

“You’re bonded to him.”  Cas said flatly, ignoring the introductions and still looking like he wanted to smite the werewolf, evidently having grasped that the bonding wasn’t consensual.  Cas was incredibly perceptive when it came to stuff like that with Dean.

Speaking on this, Dean insisted, “Yes, and no smiting him.  He didn’t mean to hurt me.”

At this Cas turned back, reaching out and resting his hand on the side of Dean’s face.  Dean could hear Derek giving off a low warning growl but both him and Cas ignored it.  The angel tilted his head, the warmth of angelic healing spreading through Dean as Cas murmured, “Because he is your Alpha I can’t stop scars from forming.  Are you positive that you don’t wish me to smite him?”

Dean rolled his eyes and relaxed at the lack of pain.  It felt really fucking nice to be able to move around without wincing or limping.  _Holy shit_ that was nice.  “I’m sure.  We’re here to get you out and if you and Derek get along better than you did with Benny, I’ll be very happy.  Derek’s probably going to be here longer.”

Proving that Dean didn’t always get what he wanted, Cas turned and glared at Derek, looking for all the world like he hadn’t even listened to Dean.  Well this was going to be fun.

“How did you get back into purgatory?” Cas asked, still watching Derek but talking to Dean.  The werewolf’s eyes were red and he was on the verge of shifting.  _Jealousy_ of all things seeping through their bond, Cas’ closeness probably wasn’t helping matters any either.

“We found a ritual that let us open a two way corridor into here” Dean replied, not so subtly moving so that he was in-between Cas and Derek.  He had no idea why he had thought that this was going to go well, especially considering that Cas probably knew _everything_ Derek had done to the hunter. 

At his words though, Cas’ eyes widened in surprise and he switched back to looking at Dean “But that required an object from void, how did you get it?”

“How the hell did you know the ritual?” Dean asked, confused.

Instantly Cas’ demeanor shifted and he seemed to withdraw, looking guilty.  “Crowley and I looked at that option for opening purgatory.”

“Oh” Dean breathed, understanding Cas’ hesitance.  That whole period when Cas was in the midst of the civil war and trying to do anything he could to protect his friends and win against Raphael hadn’t been a good time. 

“Crowley, that king of hell demon?” Derek spoke finally, suspicion lacing his tone.  “Why were you working with him?”

Dean opened his mouth to attempt to smooth things over and avoid answering, but Cas spoke first.  “To get enough souls to be able to kill Raphael.”  This was said with a glare, but back to Dean and Cas looked pleading.  “Which is why I can’t go back Dean.  I have to stay here and live out my penance for what I’ve done.”

His hands curling into fists Dean narrowed his eyes, “You’re not fucking staying here Cas.”

Sensing the movement before it happened, Dean’s hand shot out, grabbing onto Cas’ arm. “Don’t you dare fly away on me again.  You’re coming back with us, you don’t need to serve any penance.”

“I killed hundreds of people, I hurt you and your brother and unleashed the leviathan on the world.  How do I not need to pay for that?” Cas retorted, tense under Dean’s hand. 

“Listen to me this time Cas.  You’re family and I need you.” Dean hissed, grabbing Cas’ shoulders with both his hands.  “Yes you fucked up, but all of us have fucked up.  Sam left me for that demon bitch when I was in hell, he didn’t trust me enough to not set Lucifer free, he didn’t look for me while I was in purgatory and he ditched me when I got out.  I started the apocalypse, I tried to get Death to kill you, I abandoned you when you needed help.  Derek attacked me, knotted me and created some mate bond.  We’ve all fucked up according to each other and everyone else, but we have to keep going.  You can’t stay in here and run from monsters, you’ve got to get back to Earth.  Fix things if you need to pay, for fucks sake.  Go and fix heaven, fly around helping people on Earth, it doesn’t matter.  But you are not allowed to stay here or die.  I need you, okay?”

By the end of his rant Dean was right in front of Cas, their personal spaces shrinking like they always did when in each other’s presence.  Cas was wide eyed, staring at Dean like he couldn’t understand what the hunter was saying.  Derek was still feeling uncertain and jealous, but Dean didn’t have the time to make it better.  He had to get Cas to stay with them first. 

“Alright” Cas’ acquiesce was barely whispered but Dean relaxed somewhat, for the first time in days not regretting the action due to being fully healed. 

“Just warning you, I will follow you around here forever if need be” He threatened, loosening his grip on Cas’ arms.  The angel shook his head in reply without denial, still watching Dean.  The hunter nodded, releasing Cas and bracing himself for the sound of fluttering wings.  When none appeared to be forthcoming, he let himself breathe for what seemed like the first time in their conversation.

 

~*~

 

Watching Dean interact with the angel caused a mixture of sadness, jealousy and possessiveness to run through Derek.  He hadn’t asked Dean if there was anything going on between him and Cas because of the whole angel thing, but now he knew he really should have.  The two of them were barely a foot apart, breathing into each other’s personal space like it was completely natural.  And the things Dean had said to Cas were far more emotional than the hunter had ever been around the werewolf, words about _need_ and _family_ that Derek wanted but didn’t understand how he could have.  Not from his pack who had moved on, or the hunter who had found him.  There was so much fucking stuff that the werewolf didn’t know about the hunter.  Like who Benny was, who Cas was to Dean, who _Derek_ was to Dean.  Just the important things for starters

Derek had hoped that he would get along with Cas because of how significant the angel was to Dean, but it really didn’t seem like that was going to happen.  From the angel’s angry glances and threatening scent of lightning, Cas knew what Derek had done to Dean and hated the werewolf for it.  Additionally, when Cas touched Dean he had somehow healed the hunter and while Derek was grateful for that, the angel had also cleaned off Derek’s scent, leaving only the smell of their bond.  Derek’s wolf was extremely unhappy about the cleaning of his scent off Dean, wanting to scent mark the hunter again but knowing that he wouldn’t be fucking the hunter for a long time, if ever.  He also had a feeling that if he so much as touched Dean intimately, Cas would kill him.

“Can we go back now?” Derek asked, breaking into the silence that had stretched between Cas and Dean.  The angel turned his glare back on the werewolf, and Derek barely managed to keep his eyes from flashing red again at the challenge. 

“Sure” Dean responded, carefully watching Cas as he moved away.  “Derek is there anyone else around?”

“No” He answered, having been listening for any motion or heartbeats during Dean and Cas’ reunion as a distraction to his mates happiness.  Normally he’d be all for it, but Derek wasn’t the cause, Cas was.

“Awesome” Dean said, grinning.  Then he frowned, glancing between his two supernatural friends.  “You too, behave.”

Derek gave Dean a jerky nod of reassurance, but regretted it when Cas gave no such comfort.  The hunter noticed this two, frowning at the angel but not demanding anything else beyond the angel’s name spoken in warning.

Pulling the talisman from his pocket, the hunter took another glance at both Derek and Cas before reciting the incantation, the words flowing easily after having practiced them for so long.  There was a weird shattering noise that Derek hadn’t heard the first time and the talisman glowed in Dean’s open palm.  It stayed lit up for a few more seconds and then jumped into the air to shred itself apart like the howler in that Harry Potter movie Stiles had made Derek watch. 

Unable to stop himself, Derek stepped forward, stopping next to Dean and watching as the hunter removed his hand, letting the remains of the talisman fall to the ground.  From where they dropped a door grew up, now that Derek was actually watching it and not trying to control his wolf, it was really quite interesting.  The frame grew first, a black sludge like substance pouring upwards and then filling out, smoothing to become a completely flat door.  It had a latch door knob instead of the traditional one, and as Derek watched the whole thing sucked itself in to a bone white, weirdly dry and porous. 

“That took a really long time” Dean grumbled, but stepped forward, pulling the door open and looking at Cas expectantly.  The angel just nodded, brushing past Derek and stepping into the corridor.  Dean sighed in relief and motioned for Derek to go after.  The werewolf huffed out a sigh and followed Cas in, Dean trailing behind and shutting the door after them, cutting off their bond momentarily.  Hopefully momentarily, ‘cause Derek was once again really upset by the loss, though this time he easily controlled himself.  It was just a little while he had to go without, then he could be connected to Dean again.

Freezing as the smell of the corridor filled Derek’s nose, he startled at the dark patch on the floor near the far door.  Because everything else outside of the see-through walls of the corridor was constantly in motion, Dean’s blood stood out easily, the overpowering smell of terror and pain mixed in.  Barely noticing Cas who had also stopped at the sight, Derek flinched back, guiltily flicking his eyes towards Dean. 

He had scarcely turned when he was flung up against the wall.  The unexpected violence caused him to partially shift and he snarled at the unseen force that had pinned him.  In the background Dean yelped an exclamation of surprise but Cas didn’t seem to care, stalking toward the werewolf.  Derek struggled and attempted to fight back, slashing his claws to catch against the angel, Cas not even flinching at the contact. 

The werewolf’s arms were abruptly pressed to the wall also, but  he continued to struggle fruitlessly, spitting angrily, “Let go of me”

Completely immobilized now, Derek was unable to do anything as Cas pressed his palm against the werewolf’s forehead.  The whole attack had happened in seconds and Derek felt real fear pouring through him.  His wolf whined, upset and not understanding what was happening it had been so quick.  He felt like baring his throat to Cas to show he wasn’t a threat, but even that movement was being prevented

“Cas, what the fuck are you doing?” Dean’s voice broke into the cutting silence that had appeared and Cas tilted his head, glaring at Derek with a look that promised a slow death.  It probably was a weird time to realize where Dean got his habit of head tilting, but nevertheless, that wayward thought decided to run through his mind.

“This corridor goes through the Place Between which means that your bonds are cut off and he’s not affecting you as your Alpha” Cas stated, turning now to look at Dean who was standing next to them, his eyes wide and concerned.  Even with the loss of attention Derek still couldn’t move, so he settled for scowling at the side of Cas’ head, knowing that both the hunter and angel would still be able to tell he was afraid.

“I want to know if you want me to smite him.” Cas continued calmly, and Derek’s heart decided to try and beat its way out of his chest.

Deans only response was to gape at the angel and Derek knew he was going to die.  The hunter hadn’t told him why he hadn’t killed the werewolf yet, but that could also be because Dean didn’t want to be the one to actually kill Derek, sentiment and all.  As the silence stretched out, he grew even surer of this notion.  Dean could have the angel kill him now and there wouldn’t be any consequences.  Dean would have his angel back and wouldn’t be alone, he didn’t need Derek.  He had only needed Derek to guard his back and be useful in purgatory, as the hunter had Cas back, Derek was obsolete.

“Cas” Dean breathed the angels name out finally, stepping closer to them.  “Don’t.”

“You’re positive?” Cas pressed

“Yes” Dean confirmed, his eyes flicking between the angel and the werewolf. Derek felt relief flow through him, but as he was still pinned it wasn’t much.  Just an errant and slow building hope that he would make it out of this alive.

Cas nodded and turned back to Derek.  For a second the angel said nothing, watching the werewolf with narrowed eyes.  Then all the colored lights swirling around outside the corridor were suddenly many times brighter and a rumbling sound echoed through the corridor.  Derek felt all of his breath leave his body when huge black wings expanded themselves fully behind Cas. 

Having the angel barely inches away with his wings out and looking aggressively impassive was one of the only moments Derek could count on one hand as when he had been utterly and completely petrified with fear.  Faced with this massively powerful creature and entirely helpless in a way he never was, Derek submitted.  He only noticed that he had instinctively bared his neck and pulled back into himself when the back of his head hit the wall.  His wolf whimpered, recognizing another Alpha and accepting that he was the weaker of the two.

“Don’t ever harm Dean again.” The angel ordered, his voice like ice.  Then without waiting for an answer Derek was released and Cas was striding away towards the door that led out of purgatory. 

Dean sprang into motion but looked like he didn’t know what to do, taking a step towards Cas and then Derek.  Apparently choosing a path Dean stopped to run his gaze over Derek, best circumstances saying Dean was checking to make sure he wasn’t hurt.  Dean reached out and grabbed Derek’s arm briefly in reassurance before glancing at Cas and following the angel out.  For a second all Derek could do was stand where Cas had left him, trying to press down his fear of the angel.  Trailing behind Dean, Derek felt jumpy and shaky at his submission.  He had been so freaking scared, so certain that he was about to die a painful death and spend a very long time in that place he had just helped get the angel out of.  But Dean had told Cas not to, he had let Derek live even being back in the place where he was raped, his blood still staining the wall and floor. 

Derek really needed to find out why Dean was keeping him alive and with the hunter.  Of course that would most likely have to wait until Cas was gone and Dean allowed it, so for now he just went with them, feeling more and more like some pup trailing after.  Without having the pack bond Derek still thought very fondly of Dean, but now he was also curious to the opposite of his concerns about Dean.  As much as why Dean allowed the werewolf to stay with him, why did Derek stay with Dean?


	15. Hold on to what you need, we've got a knack for fucked up history

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end! Which I rewrote half of right before posting!
> 
> Also, I may write little one shots off of this, but I'm not sure. If anyone wants to see anything certain, just leave a comment and I'll think/write it.
> 
> Thank you everyone for reading this! You all are lovely people and I hope you've enjoyed it

When they got out of the corridor they found themselves in a random family’s living room, startling the hell out of the household cat when the door appeared and then collapsed behind them.  Evidently when they had moved across purgatory they had also moved across earth—however that worked—so it was awesome that they didn’t appear inside a tree or something randomly shitty like that. 

Cas was nice enough to fly them all out of the place, asking where they should go and then taking them to a motel they had left the impala by.  Derek had volunteered to go and get food and the impala when Dean and Cas started a short argument outside the motel office.  If not for being jealous at the ease with which the two interacted, it was actually quite amusing, Dean insisting that Cas eat something and sleep while Cas said he was an angel and didn’t need to, though even Derek could tell that Cas needed it.  The guy was still filthy and bearded and agreed to getting cleaned, but Derek knew he was also tired.  It didn’t look like it was going to be a long argument, more of a tradition than anything, but Derek had felt distinctly out of place.  He wanted to be close to Dean but wasn’t sure how the angel would take it.  That was just to add insult to injury, as Derek _shouldn’t_ care how the angel would take things when it came to his mate.

So Derek had volunteered and left, knowing that they’d speak about him in his absence but hoping that he’d be safe as long as Dean was around.  If the hunter hadn’t allowed him to be killed without their bonds, there was little reason or possibility of him doing so with the bonds.  This nice little optimistic view lasted until Derek parked the impala and got out to find himself face to face with the angel, swearing under his breath as he was reminded of all the times that Stiles had freaked out about the werewolf appearing unannounced in his room.  Uncertain of what to say, Derek shut the door, pocketing the keys and waiting for Cas to speak first.   The angel had cleaned up, as he was shaved and no longer covered in dirt or blood.  He was also wearing Dean’s clothes underneath his trench coat, something Derek was _not_ happy about.

“You’ve had bad experiences with having relations with hunters in the past, so why did you choose Dean as your mate?” The angel spoke suddenly.  Okay, so that hadn’t been expected.  And also, how the fuck did the angel even know that?  Conveying this sentiment aloud, Derek almost wished he hadn’t at Cas’ quick reply.  “Everyone has marks left behind on their souls, when Dean asked me not to smite you I took the time to examine yours.”

“And why should I tell you?” Derek asked when no more information was forthcoming.  He really didn’t want to explain how safe Dean made him feel, and how much the hunter was _pack_ , though he’d never met any of Derek’s other wolves.  Even more than that he didn’t want to think about any potential marks left behind on his soul.

“Because Dean is my charge.  He is important to me” Cas replied simply

Unable to stop the touch of jealousy Derek retorted, “And yet he’s agreed to _my_ claim.”

Though Cas’ face did not change, the buzzing smell of ozone that followed the angel around increased to feel like lightning was about to hit.  “If it is a question of ownership, we both are aware that Dean would sooner belong to me than you.  But as it is, he carries your bite on his neck and my handprint on his arm, so I’ll ask again, why did you choose him as your mate?”

Aware of the background sounds of Dean taking a shower in the motel room and realizing he wouldn’t be getting out of this conversation without answering Cas, Derek shrugged, feigning nonchalance, “He’s pack, I’ve fucked him over and yet he’s safety.”

So that had been a bit more than Derek had meant to share and he was totally going to blame it on the angel, but he couldn’t take it back now.  Instead, the werewolf scowled at the angel, defiant in the face of Cas’ coldness.  Cas tilted his head to the side, submitting Derek to one of the long stares he had noticed the angel giving Dean, though a much colder version to Derek.  

“Dean wishes us to get along.” The angel stated abruptly, “I do not care for you, but I am aware that neither you nor Dean wants your bond broken.  I will always do whatever I can to protect Dean, even if it requires making him unhappy.” Cas paused and Derek took a step back, forgetting that the impala was behind him and pressing back against the metal.  Killing Derek would make Dean unhappy, but it wouldn’t protect Dean, unless it did in Cas’ eyes.  

Where other enemies would’ve mocked this sign of fear, no amusement crossed Cas’ face as he continued to speak.  “In this case you can be useful.  If I am not there and since Sam has abandoned him, you will protect Dean.”

Derek blinked before narrowing his eyes suspiciously.  “Are you planning on not being there?”

“That isn’t something I’m going to share with you.” Cas glared in reply.

Unable to believe what he was saying, but knowing how much Dean had done to get Cas back, Derek hissed, “You are not leaving Dean, he did everything to get you back and would be _broken_ if you abandoned him.  You said you’d do anything to protect him”

Cas tilted his head to the side, evidently as confused by Derek’s words as he was himself, even with the good reasoning behind him.  No, Derek didn’t like the angel, but his absence would hurt Derek’s mate, so the werewolf would deal with him all the same.  

For the first time a slight smile appeared on Castiel’s face and Derek faltered, not knowing what that meant.  “Then we understand each other.  As he is your mate, there is little that you wouldn’t do for Dean, and I have and still would give my life for him if necessary.  I don’t trust you, but I understand werewolf instincts.  Do not hurt Dean again and we will not have any problems, Dean always comes first.”

Biting his lip, Derek gave a short sharp nod and the angel tipped his head in acceptance before disappearing.  The displacement of air and echo of flapping wings faded quickly and Derek noticed that the shower had turned off, evidently Dean was getting out and Cas didn’t want him to notice the angel had gone.

Still slightly confused at their conversation but accepting it because he couldn’t do anything else, Derek slowly walked over to their motel room.  He knocked on the door and was greeted by a cheerful hunter wearing only a towel.  One that was dropped as soon as Derek was inside and the werewolf’s eyes instantly flickered over to Cas.  The angel wasn’t watching Dean though, and gave no sign of having had their conversation outside.  

“There isn’t any warm water left ‘cause Cas used it all to clean his feathery ass, but the water pressure is okay” Dean remarked, pulling on boxers and hiding Derek’s view of his nice ass, which he had been looking at as soon as he made sure Cas wasn’t.  The marks Derek had left behind were quite visible even amongst the other scars Dean had, and his wolf wanted nothing more than to worry at the back of Dean’s neck where he had bitten the hunter.  Claw marks on Dean’s hips, a bite on his neck, beautiful and visible signs of Derek’s ownership.

To stop this line of thought before he just dropped everything and took the hunter in front of Cas, Derek made a soft noise of acknowledgment and went to the bathroom, stripping and getting under the ice cold water.  By the time he was out of the shower and throwing on some boxers, Dean had claimed the bed closest to the door and Cas was asleep or pretending.  Derek longed to be close to his mate but the hunter betrayed his unease with the way he didn’t move quite as naturally as he had the last time he was around Derek mostly—or completely—unclothed.  He put up a good show of it, that was for certain, but Derek could smell the lingering spots of unease

Upset by this but knowing the hunter needed time away from Derek, the werewolf walked over to the couch, trying to figure out a way to make it comfortable enough to sleep on.  Dean had slept with Derek in purgatory for warmth, but that that was it.

“What are you doing?” Dean asked, already in the bed and watching Derek with his head tilted to the side. 

Derek almost mirrored the motion in confusion to the question, replying “Going to bed?”

He hadn’t meant to make it a question, but Dean dismissed it like one anyways.  Though the hunter tried to act nonchalant his heart sped up slightly as he patted the bedding clear invitation.  “You’re not sleeping on the couch.  And don’t you dare ask me if I’m sure”

Derek probably should’ve moved slower and been more cautious, but as soon as Dean stopped speaking he was pressing forward, sliding under the covers beside Dean and then hovering uncertainly, wanting and not knowing how much he could have. 

Dean rolled over immediately, wrapping his arms around Derek and attaching himself to the werewolf’s side.  His head tilted to the side and pressed amusingly into the pillow, Dean murmured, “You don’t need to act like I’m going to throw you out all the time.”

Snorting softly under his breath Derek replied “ _You_ might not”

“I won’t let Cas do that either.” Dean huffed, rolling his eyes before stating seriously, “As much as I’m yours, you’re mine.”

The possessive words sent a thrill through Derek and he confirmed, “You are still mine then?”

 The hunter smiled softly, cuddling closer to the werewolf and pressing his lips against Derek’s in a lazy open mouthed kiss that he allowed the werewolf to take charge of.  After pulling back Dean whispered, “Yes, I’m still yours”

Derek grinned in reply, his wolf growling in contentment and a little bit of the sound coming through.  The hunter laughed softly at the happy noise before twining their legs together and burrowing his face into Derek’s neck.  The obvious show of trust and vocal submission allowed Derek to fully relax for the first time since they had found Cas, and he held Dean in return, nosing into the hunters hair and breathing in the wonderful scent of his contented mate. 

This, Derek thought sleepily, this was why he stayed with Dean. 

**Author's Note:**

> The title and all chapter titles are taken from different Modest Mouse songs, because apparently that's how I roll...


End file.
